THE 

CHAllTAtlQUA- 

sLITERARY#SCimBFl(; 
CIRQE 


BRARY 

m  DltGO 


presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 


Mr.   Frederick  A.   Roetter 


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THE  CHAUTAUQUA  LITERARY   AND  SCIEN- 
TIFIC CIRCLE, 
f  ounde&  in  1878. 

This  volume  is  a  part  of  the  course  of  home  reading  the 
essential  features  of  which  are  : 

1.  A  Definite  Course  covering  four  pears,  and  including 

History,  Literature,  Art,  Science,  etc.    {A  reader  m,ay 
enroll  for  only  one  year.) 

2.  Specified  Volumes  approved  by  the  counselors.    Many  of 

the  books  are  specially  prepared  for  the  purpose. 

3.  Allotment  of  Time.     The  reading  is  apportioned  by  the 

week  and  month. 

4.  A  Monthly  Magazine,  The  Chautauquan,  with  ad- 

ditional readings,  notes,  and  general  literature. 

5.  A  Membership  Book,  containing  suggestions  for  reading, 

review  outlines,  and  other  aid. 

6.  Individual  readers,  no  matter  how  isolated,  may  have  all 

the  privileges. 

7.  Local  Circles  may  be  formed  by  three  or  more  members 

for  mutual  aid  and  encouragement. 

8.  The  time  required  is  from  forty  minutes  to  an  hour  a  day 

for  nine  months. 

9.  Certificates  are  granted  at  the  end  of  four  years  to  all 

who  complete  the  course. 
CO.  Advanced    courses,  for    continued  reading   in    special 
lines — History,  Literature,  etc. 

11.  Pedagogical  course /or  secular  teachers. 

12.  Young  Peoples'  Reading  Course  to  stimulate  the  reading  of 

good  literature  by  the  young. 
For  all  information  concerning  the  C.  L.  S.  C.  address 

John  H.  Vincent,  Drawer  194,  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 

THE  REQUIRED  LITERATURE  FOR  1894-5. 

The  Growth  of  the  English  Nation  (illus- 
trated). Katharine  Coman,  Professor  of  History 
in  Wellesley  College Jl.OO 

The  Nineteenth  Century  (illustrated).  H.  P. 
Judson,  Professor  of  Political  Science,  University 
of  Chicago 1.00 

From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson  (with  portraits). 
Henry  A.  Beers,  Professor  of  English  Literature, 
Yale  University 1.00 

The  Renaissance  and  Modern  Art  (illustrated). 
W.  H.  GkK>dyear,  Lecturer  to  the  Brooklyn  Insti- 
tute    1.00 

Walks  and  Talks  in  the  Geolooical  Field 
(illustrated).  Alexander  Winchell.late  Professor 
of  Geology,  University  of  Michigan         .        .        .     1.00 

The  Chautauquan  (12  numbers,  illustrated)       .     2.00 


WILi,IAM  8HAKSPERE, 


Cbautauqua  'KeaMtid  Circle  Xiterature 

FROM 

CHAUCER  TO  TENNYSON 

WITH  TWENTY-NINE  PORTRAITS 

AND 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THIRTY  AUTHORS. 


BY 
HENRY  A.  BEERS 

Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Yale  University. 


FLOOD  AND  VINCENT 
Cbe  (jCbautauqua^^entucp  ^xzH 

MEADVILLE  PENNA 

150  FIFTH  AVE.  NEW  YORK 

1894 


Copyright,  1894, 
By  Flood  <fe  Vincent. 


The  Chautauqua-Century  Press,  Meadville,  Pa.,  U.  8.  A. 
Printed  and  Bound  by  Flood  &  Vincent. 


PREFACE. 

TN"  so  brief  a  history  of  so  rich  a  literature,  the  problem  is 
-*-  how  to  get  room  enough  to  give,  not  an  adequate  impres- 
sion— that  is  impossible — but  any  impression  at  all  of  the  sub- 
ject. To  do  this  I  have  crowded  out  every  thing  but  heUes 
lettres.  Books  in  philosophy,  history,  science,  etc.,  however 
important  in  the  history  of  English  thought,  receive  the 
merest  incidental  mention,  or  even  no  mention  at  all.  Again, 
I  have  omitted  the  literature  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period, 
which  is  written  in  a  language  nearly  as  hard  for  a  modem 
Englishman  to  read  as  German  is,  or  Dutch.  Caedmon  and 
Cynewulf  are  no  more  a  part  of  English  literature  than  Vergil 
and  Horace  are  of  Italian.  I  have  also  left  out  the  vernac- 
ular literature  of  the  Scotch  before  the  time  of  Bums.  Up 
to  the  date  of  the  union  Scotland  was  a  separate  kingdom, 
and  its  literature  had  a  development  independent  of  the 
English,  though  parallel  with  it. 

In  dividing  the  history  into  periods,  I  have  followed,  with 
some  modifications,  the  divisions  made  by  Mr.  Stopford 
Brooke  in  his  excellent  little  Primer  of  English  Literature. 
A  short  reading  course  is  appended  to  each  chapter. 

Henry  A.  Beers. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  PAOS 

From  the  Conquest  to  Chaucer,  1066-1400 1 

CHAPTER  II. 
Fboh  Chaucer  to  Spenser,  1400-1599 31 

CHAPTER  III. 
The  Age  of  Shakspere,  1564-1616 56 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Age  op  Milton,  1608-1674 92 

CHAPTER  V. 
From  the  Restoration  to  the  Death  of  Pope,  1660-1744 121 

CHAPTER  VI. 
From  the  Death  of  Pope  to  the  French  Revolution,  1744-1789...   143 

CHAPTER  VII. 

From  the  French  Revolution  to  the  Death  of  Scott,  1789-1832...   164 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
From  the  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Present  Time,  1832-1893 197 

Appendix 223 


LIST  OF  PORTRAITS. 

William  Shakspkre Frontispiece. 

Facing 
page 

Geoffrey  Chaucek,  Edmund  Spenser,  Francis  Bacon, 
John  Milton 60 

John  Dryden,  Joseph  Addison,  Alexander  Pope,  Jon- 
athan Swift 141 

Samuel  Johnson,  Oliver  Goldsmith,  William  Cowper, 
Robert  Burns 157 

William  Wordsworth,  George  Gordon  Byron,  Percy 
Bysshe  Shelley,  John  Keats 164 

Robert  Southey,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge,  Thomas  Babington  Macaulay     ....       197 

Thomas  Cablyle,  John  Ruskin,  William  Makepeace 
Thackeray,  Charles  Dickens 205 

George   Eliot    (Mary   Ann    Evans),   James    Anthony 
Froude,  Robert  Browning,  Alfred  Tennyson    .    .    .    213 


The  required  books  of  the  C.  L.  S.  C.  are  recommended  by  a 
Council  of  six.  It  must,  however,  be  understood  that  rec- 
ommendation does  not  involve  an  approval  by  the  Council, 
or  by  any  m,ember  of  it,  of  every  principle  or  doctrine 
contained  in  the  book  recommended. 


FROM  CHAUCER  TO  TENNYSON. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FROM  THE  CONQUEST  TO  CHAUCER. 
1066-1400. 

The  Norman  conquest  of  England,  in  the  11th  century, 
made  a  break  in  the  natural  growth  of  the  English  language 
and  literature.  The  Old  English  or  Anglo-Saxon  had  been 
a  purely  Germanic  speech,  with  a  complicated  grammar  and 
a  full  set  of  inflections.  For  three  hundred  years  following  the 
battle  of  Hastings  this  native  tongue  was  driven  from  the 
king's  court  and  the  courts  of  law,  from  Parliament,  school, 
and  university.  During  all  this  time  there  were  two  lan- 
guages spoken  in  England.  Norman  French  was  the  birth- 
tongue  of  the  upper  classes  and  English  of  the  lower.  When 
the  latter  got  the  better  of  the  struggle,  and  became,  about 
the  middle  of  the  14th  century,  the  national  speech  of  all 
England,  it  was  no  longer  the  English  of  King  Alfred.  It 
was  a  new  language,  a  grammarless  tongue,  almost  wholly 
stripped  of  its  inflections.  It  had  lost  half  of  its  old  words, 
and  had  filled  their  places  with  French  equivalents.  The  Nor- 
man lawyers  had  introduced  legal  terms;  the  ladies  and  court- 
iers words  of  dress  and  courtesy.  The  knight  had  imported 
the  vocabulary  of  war  and  of  the  chase.  The  master-builders 
of  the  Norman  castles  and  cathedrals  contributed  technical 
expressions  proper  to  the  architect  and  the  mason.  The  art 
of  cooking  was  French.     The  naming  of  the  living  animals, 


8  Fkom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

ox,  swine,  sheep,  deer,  was  left  to  the  Saxon  churl  who  had 
the  herding  of  them,  while  the  dressed  meats,  beef,  porJc, 
mutton,  venison,  received  their  baptism  from  the  table-talk  of 
his  Norman  master.  The  four  orders  of  begging  friars,  and 
especially  the  Franciscans  or  Gray  Friars,  introduced  into 
England  in  1224,  became  intermediaries  between  the  high 
and  the  low.  They  went  about  preaching  to  the  poor,  and 
in  their  sermons  they  intermingled  French  with  English.  In 
their  hands,  too,  was  almost  all  the  science  of  the  day  ; 
their  medicine,  botany,  and  astronomy  displaced  the  old 
nomenclature  of  leechdom,  wort- cunning  and  star -craft. 
And,  finally,  the  translators  of  French  poems  often  found  it 
easier  to  transfer  a  foreign  word  bodily  than  to  seek  out  a 
native  synonym,  particularly  when  the  former  supplied  them 
with  a  rhyme.  But  the  innovation  reached  even  to  the  com- 
monest words  in  every-day  use,  so  that  voice  drove  out 
Steven,  poor  drove  out  earm,  and  color,  use,  and  place  made 
good  their  footing  beside  hue,  wont,  and  stead.  A  great 
part  of  the  English  words  that  were  left  were  so  changed  in 
spelling  and  pronunciation  as  to  be  practically  new.  Chaucer 
stands,  in  date,  midway  between  King  Alfred  and  Alfred 
Tennyson,  but  his  English  differs  vastly  more  from  the  for- 
mer's than  from  the  latter's.  To  Chaucer,  Anglo-Saxon  was 
as  much  a  dead  language  as  it  is  to  us. 

The  classical  Anglo-Saxon,  moreover,  had  been  the  Wes« 
sex  dialect,  spoken  and  written  at  Alfred's  capital,  Winches- 
ter. When  the  French  had  displaced  this  as  the  language 
of  culture,  there  was  no  longer  a  "  king's  English  "  or  any 
literary  standard.  The  sources  of  modein  standard  English 
are  to  be  found  in  the  East  Midland,  spoken  in  Lincoln, 
Norfolk,  Suffolk,  Cambridge,  and  neighboring  shires.  Here 
the  old  Anglian  had  been  corrupted  by  the  Danish  settlers, 
and  rapidly  threw  off  its  inflections  when  it  became  a  spoken 
and  no  longer  a  written  language,  after  the  Conquest.  The 
West  Saxon,  clinging  more  tenaciously   to    ancient  forms, 


Feom  the  Conquest  to  Chaucee.        9 

sank  into  the  position  of  a  local  dialect;  while  the  East 
Midland,  spreading  to  London,  Oxford,  and  Cambridge, 
became  the  literary  English  in  which  Chaucer  wrote. 

The  Normans  brought  in  also  new  intellectual  influences 
and  new  forms  of  literature.  They  were  a  cosmopolitan 
people,  and  they  connected  England  with  the  Continent. 
Lanfranc  and  Anselm,  the  first  two  Norman  archbishops  of 
Canterbury,  were  learned  and  splendid  prelates  of  a  type 
quite  unknown  to  the  Anglo-Saxons.  They  introduced  the 
scholastic  philosophy  taught  at  the  University  of  Paris, 
and  the  reformed  discipline  of  the  Norman  abbeys.  They 
bound  the  English  Church  more  closely  to  Rome,  and 
ofiicered  it  with  Normans,  English  bishops  were  deprived 
of  their  sees  for  illiteracy,  and  French  abbots  were  set 
over  monasteries  of  Saxon  monks.  Down  to  the  middle  of 
the  14th  century  the  learned  literature  of  England  was  mostly 
in  Latin,  and  the  polite  literature  in  French.  English  did  not 
at  any  time  altogether  cease  to  be  a  written  language,  but  the 
extant  remains  of  the  period  from  1066  to  1200  are  few  and, 
with  one  exception,  unimportant.  After  1200  English  came 
more  and  more  into  Written  use,  but  mainly  in  translations, 
paraphrases,  and  imitations  of  French  works.  The  native 
genius  was  at  school,  and  followed  awkwardly  the  copy  set 
by  its  master. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  for  example,  had  been  rhyth- 
mical and  alliterative.  It  was  commonly  written  in  lines 
containing  four  rhythmical  accents  and  with  three  of  the 
accented  syllables  alliterating. 

i?este  hine  th4  nim-lieort ;  reced  hlifade 
ffeap  and  y6ld-f4h,  ^ast  inne  swaf. 

Rested  him  then  the  great-hearted ;  the  hall  towered 
Roomy  and  gold-bright,  the  guest  slept  within. 

This  rude,  energetic  verse  the  Saxon  scop  had  sung  to  his 
harp    or    glee-beam,    dwelling    on    the    emphatic   syllables, 


10  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

passing  swiftly  over  the  others,  which  were  of  undeter- 
mined number  and  position  in  the  line.  It  was  now  dis- 
placed by  the  smooth  metrical  verse  with  rhymed  endings, 
which  the  French  introduced  and  which  our  modern  poets 
use,  a  verse  fitted  to  be  recited  rather  than  sung.  The  old 
English  alliterative  verse  continued,  indeed,  in  occasional  use 
to  the  16th  century.  But  it  was  linked  to  a  forgotten 
literature  and  an  obsolete  dialect,  and  was  doomed  to  give 
way.  Chaucer  lent  his  great  authority  to  the  more  modern 
verse  system,  and  his  own  literary  models  and  inspirers  were 
all  foreign,  French  or  Italian.  Literature  in  England  began 
to  be  once  more  English  and  truly  national  in  the  hands  of 
Chaucer  and  his  contemporaries,  but  it  was  the  literature  of 
a  nation  cut  off  from  its  own  past  by  three  centuries  of 
foreign  rule. 

The  most  noteworthy  English  document  of  the  11th  and 
12th  centuries  was  the  continuation  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
chronicle.  Copies  of  these  annals,  differing  somewhat  among 
themselves,  had  been  kept  at  the  monasteries  in  Winchester, 
Abingdon,  Worcester,  and  elsewhere.  The  yearly  entries  are 
mostly  brief,  dry  records  of  passing  events,  though  occasional- 
ly they  become  full  and  animated.  The  fen  country  of  Cam- 
bridge and  Lincolnshire  was  a  region  of  monasteries.  Here 
were  the  great  abbeys  of  Peterborough  and  Croyland  and 
Ely  minster.  One  of  the  earliest  English  songs  tells  how  the 
savage  heart  of  the  Danish  king  Cnut  was  softened  by  the 
singing  of  the  monks  in  Ely. 

Merie  sungen  muneches  binnen  Ely 
Tha  Cnut  chyning  reu  ther  by; 
Roweth,  cnihtes,  noer  the  land. 
And  here  we  tlies  muneches  sang. 

Merrily  sung  the  monks  in  Ely 
When  King  Canute  rowed  by. 
'  Row  boys,  nearer  the  laud, 
And  let  us  hear  tliese  monks'  song.' 


Fkom  the  Conquest  to  Chauceb.  11 

It  was  among  the  dikes  and  marshes  of  this  fen  country 
that  the  bold  outlaw  Hereward,  "  the  last  of  the  English," 
held  out  for  some  years  against  the  conqueror.  And  it  was 
here,  in  the  rich  abbey  of  Burgh  or  Peterborough,  the  an- 
cient Medeshamstede  (meadow-homestead),  that  the  chron- 
icle was  continued  nearly  a  century  after  the  Conquest, 
breaking  off  abruptly  in  1154,  the  date  of  King  Stephen's 
death.  Peterborough  had  received  a  new  Norman  abbot, 
Turold,  "  a  very  stern  man,"  and  the  entry  in  the  chronicle 
for  1070  tells  how  Hereward  and  his  gang,  with  his  Danish 
backers,  thereupon  plundered  the  abbey  of  its  treasures, 
which  were  first  removed  to  Ely,  and  then  carried  off  by  the 
Danish  fleet  and  sunk,  lost,  or  squandered.  The  English  in 
the  later  portions  of  this  Peterborough  chronicle  becomes 
gradually  more  modern,  and  falls  away  more  and  more 
from  the  strict  grammatical  standards  of  the  classical  Anglo- 
Saxon.  It  is  a  most  valuable  historical  monument,  and 
some  passages  of  it  are  written  with  great  vividness,  notably 
the  sketch  of  William  the  Conquerer  put  down  in  the  year 
of  his  death  (1086)  by  one  who  had  "looked  upon  him  and 
at  another  time  dwelt  in  his  court."  "  He  who  was  before  a 
rich  king,  and  lord  of  many  a  land,  he  had  not  then  of  all  his 
land  but  a  piece  of  seven  feet.  .  .  .  Likewise  he  was  a  very 
stark  man  and  a  terrible,  so  that  one  durst  do  nothing 
against  his  will.  .  .  .  Among  other  things  is  not  to  be  forgot- 
ten the  good  peace  that  he  made  in  this  land,  so  that  a 
man  might  fare  over  his  kingdom  with  his  bosom  full  of 
gold  unhurt.  He  set  up  a  great  deer  preserve,  and  he  laid 
laws  therewith  that  whoso  should  slay  hart  or  hind,  he 
should  be  blinded.  As  greatly  did  he  love  the  tall  deer  as 
if  he  were  their  father." 

With  the  discontinuance  of  the  Peterborough  annals, 
English  history  written  in  English  prose  ceased  for  three 
hundred  years.  The  thread  of  the  nation's  story  was  kept 
up  in  Latin  chronicles,  compiled  by  writers  partly  of  English 


12  From  Chaucee  to  Tenkyson. 

and  partly  of  Norman  descent.  The  earliest  of  these,  such 
as  Ordericus  Vitalis,  Simeon  of  Durham,  Henry  of  Hunt- 
ingdon, and  William  of  Malmesbury,  were  contemporary 
with  the  later  entries  of  the  Saxon  chronicle.  Tlie  last 
of  them,  Matthew  of  Westminster,  finished  his  work  in 
1273.  About  1300,  Robert,  a  monk  of  Gloucester,  composed 
a  chronicle  in  English  verse,  following  in  the  main  the 
authority  of  the  Latin  chronicles,  and  he  was  succeeded  by 
other  rhyming  chroniclers  in  the  14th  century.  In  the 
hands  of  these  the  true  history  of  the  Saxon  times  was 
overlaid  with  an  ever-increasing  mass  of  fable  and  legend. 
All  real  knowledge  of  the  period  dwindled  away  until 
in  Capgraves's  Chronicle  of  England,  written  in  prose  in 
1463-1464,  hardly  any  thing  of  it  is  left.  In  history  as  in 
literature  the  English  had  forgotten  their  past,  and  had 
turned  to  foreign  sources.  It  is  noteworthy  that  Shakspere, 
who  borrowed  his  subjects  and  his  heroes  sometimes  from 
authentic  English  history,  sometimes  from  the  legendary 
history  of  ancient  Britain,  Denmark,  and  Scotland — as  in 
Lear,  Hamlet,  and  Macbeth,  respectively — ignores  the  Saxon 
period  altogether.  And  Spenser,  who  gives  in  the  second 
book  of  his  Faerie  Queene  a  resum^  of  the  reigns  of 
fabulous  British  kings — the  supposed  ancestors  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  his  royal  patron — has  nothing  to  say  of  the  real 
kings  of  early  England.  So  completely  had  the  true 
record  faded  away  that  it  made  no  appeal  to  the  imagina- 
tions of  our  most  patriotic  poets.  The  Saxon  Alfred  had 
been  dethroned  by  the  British  Arthur,  and  the  conquered 
Welsh  had  imposed  their  fictitious  genealogies  upon  the 
dynasty  of  the  conquerors. 

In  the  JRonian  de  Mou,  a  verse  chronicle  of  the  dukes  of 
Normandy,  written  by  the  Norman  Wace,  it  is  related  that 
at  the  battle  of  Hastings  the  French  jongleur,  Taillefer, 
spurred  out  before  the  van  of  William's  army,  tossing  his 
lance   in    the  air  and   chanting  of  "Charlemagne   and    of 


Fkom  the  Conquest  to  Chaucee.       13 

Roland,  of  Oliver  and  the  peers  who  died  at  Roncesvals." 
This  incident  is  prophetic  of  the  victory  which  Norman 
song,  no  less  than  Norman  arms,  was  to  win  over  England. 
The  lines  which  Taillefer  sang  were  from  the  Chanson  de 
Roland,  the  oldest  and  best  of  the  French  hero  sagas.  The 
heathen  Northmen,  who  had  ravaged  the  coasts  of  France 
in  the  10th  century,  had  become  in  the  course  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  completely  identified  with  the  French.  They 
had  accepted  Christianity,  intermarried  with  the  native 
women,  and  forgotten  their  own  Norse  tongue.  The  race 
thus  formed  was  the  most  brilliant  in  Europe.  The  warlike, 
adventurous  spirit  of  the  vikings  mingled  in  its  blood  with 
the  French  nimbleness  of  wit  and  fondness  for  display.  The 
Normans  were  a  nation  of  knights-errant,  with  a  passion  for 
prowess  and  for  courtesy.  Their  architecture  was  at  once 
strong  and  graceful.  Their  women  were  skilled  in  em- 
broidery, a  splendid  sample  of  which  is  preserved  in  the 
famous  Bayeux  tapestry,  in  which  the  conqueror's  wife, 
Matilda,  and  the  ladies  of  her  court  wrought  the  history  of 
the  Conquest. 

This  national  taste  for  decoration  expressed  itself  not  only 
in  the  ceremonious  pomp  of  feast  and  chase  and  tourney,  but 
likewise  in  literature.  The  most  characteristic  contribution 
of  the  Normans  to  English  poetry  were  the  metrical  romances 
or  chivalry  tales.  These  were  sung  or  recited  by  the  min- 
strels, who  were  among  the  retainers  of  every  great  feudal 
baron,  or  by  the  jongleurs,  who  wandered  from  court  to 
castle.  There  is  a  whole  literature  of  these  romans  d' 
aventure  in  the  Anglo-Norman  dialect  of  French.  Many  of 
them  are  very  long — often  thirty,  forty,  or  fifty  thousand 
lines — written  sometimes  in  a  strophic  form,  sometimes  in 
long  Alexandrines,  but  commonly  in  the  short,  eight-syllabled 
rhyming  couplet.  Numbers  of  them  were  turned  into  En- 
glish verse  in  the  13  th,  14th,  and  15  th  centuries.  The  trans- 
lations were  usually  inferior  to  the  originals.     The  French 


14         From  Chaucer  to  Tbnnyson. 

trouvere  (finder  or  poet)  told  his  story  in  a  straightforward, 
prosaic  fashion,  omitting  no  details  in  the  action  and  unroll- 
ing endless  descriptions  of  dresses,  trappings,  gardens,  etc. 
He  invented  plots  and  situations  full  of  fine  possibilities  by 
which  later  poets  have  profited,  but  his  own  handling  of  them 
was  feeble  and  prolix.  Yet  there  was  a  simplicity  about  the 
old  French  language  and  a  certain  elegance  and  delicacy  in 
the  diction  of  the  trouveres  which  the  rude,  unformed  En- 
glish failed  to  catch. 

The  heroes  of  these  romances  were  of  various  climes :  Guy 
of  Warwick,  and  Richard  the  Lion  Heart  of  England, 
Havelok  the  Dane,  Sir  Troilus  of  Troy,  Charlemagne,  and 
Alexander.  But,  strangely  enough,  the  favorite  hero  of 
English  romance  was  that  mythical  Arthur  of  Britain,  whom 
Welsh  legend  had  celebrated  as  the  most  formidable  enemy 
of  the  Sassenach  invaders  and  their  victor  in  twelve  great 
battles.  The  language  and  literature  of  the  ancient  Cymry 
or  Welsh  had  made  no  impression  on  their  Anglo-Saxon 
conquerors.  There  are  a  few  Welsh  borrowings  in  the  En- 
glish speech,  such  as  bard  and  druid/  but  in  the  old  Anglo- 
Saxon  literature  there  are  no  more  traces  of  British  song  and 
story  than  if  the  two  races  had  been  sundered  by  the  ocean 
instead  of  being  borderers  for  over  six  hundred  years.  But 
the  Welsh  had  their  oA'n  national  traditions,  and  after  the 
Norman  Conquest  these  were  set  free  from  the  isolation  of  their 
Celtic  tongue  and,  in  an  indirect  form,  entered  into  the  gen- 
eral literature  of  Europs.  The  French  came  into  contact 
with  the  old  British  literature  in  two  places:  in  the  Welsh 
marches  in  England  and  in  the  province  of  Brittany  in 
France,  where  the  population  is  of  Cymric  race,  and  spoke, 
and  still  to  some  extent  speaks,  a  Cymric  dialect  akin  to  the 
Welsh. 

About  1140  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  a  Benedictine  monk, 
seemingly  of  Welsh  descent,  who  lived  at  the  court  of  Henry 
the  First  and  became  afterward  bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  pro- 


Fkom  the  Conquest  to  Chaucer.  16 

duced  in  Latin  a  so-called  Historia  JBritonum,  in  which  it 
was  told  how  Brutus,  the  great  grandson  of  ^neas,  came  to 
Britain,  and  founded  there  his  kingdom  called  after  him,  and 
his  city  of  New  Troy  (Troynovant)  on  the  site  of  the  later 
London.  An  air  of  historic  gravity  was  given  to  this  tissue 
of  Welsh  legends  by  an  exact  chronology  and  the  genealogy 
of  the  British  kings,  and  the  author  referred,  as  his  authority, 
to  an  imaginary  Welsh  book  given  him,  as  he  said,  by  a  cer- 
tain W^alter,  Archdeacon  of  Oxford.  Here  appeared  that 
line  of  fabulous  British  princes  which  has  become  so  familiar 
to  modern  readers  in  the  plays  of  Shakspere  and  the  poems 
of  Tennyson  :  Lear  and  his  three  daughters ;  Cymbeline  ; 
Gorboduc,  the  subject  of  the  earliest  regular  English  tragedy, 
composed  by  Sackville  and  acted  in  1562;  Locrine  and  his 
Queen  Gwendolen  and  his  daughter  Sabrina,  who  gave  her 
name  to  the  river  Severn,  was  made  immortal  by  an  exquis- 
ite song  in  Milton's  Comus  and  became  the  heroine  of  the 
tragedy  of  Locrine,  once  attributed  to  Shakspere ;  and  above 
all,  Arthur,  the  son  of  Uther  Pendragon,  and  the  founder  of 
the  Table  Round.  In  1155  Wace,  the  author  of  the  Roman 
de  Hou,  turned  Geoffrey's  work  into  a  French  poem  entitled 
Brut  cV  Angleterre,  "brut "being  a  Welsh  word  meaning 
chronicle.  About  the  year  1200  Wace's  poem  was  Englished 
by  Layamon,  a  priest  of  Arley  Regis,  on  the  border  stream 
of  Severn.  Layamon's  Brut  is  in  thirty  thousand  lines, 
partly  alliterative  and  partly  rhymed,  but  written  in  pure 
Saxon  English  with  hardly  any  French  words.  The  style  is 
rude  but  vigorous,  and,  at  times,  highly  imaginative.  Wace 
had  amplified  Geoffrey's  chronicle  somewhat,  but  Layamon 
made  much  larger  additions,  derived,  no  doubt,  from  legends 
current  on  the  Welsh  border.  In  particular,  the  story  of 
Arthur  grew  in  his  hands  into  something  like  fullness.  He 
tells  of  the  enchantments  of  Merlin,  the  wizard  ;  of  the 
unfaithfulness  of  Arthur's  queen,  Guenever,  and  the 
treachery  of  his  nephew,  Modred.     His  narration  of  the  last 


16  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

great  battle  between  Arthur  and  Modred  ;  of  the  wounding 
of  the  king  —  "fifteen  fiendly  wounds  he  had,  one  might  in 
the  least  three  gloves  thrust "  — ;  and  of  the  little  boat 
with  "  two  women  therein,  wonderly  dight,"  which  came  to 
bear  him  away  to  Avalun  and  the  Queen  Argante,  "  sheen- 
est  of  all  elves,"  whence  he  shall  come  again,  according 
to  Merlin's  prophecy,  to  rule  the  Britons  ;  all  this  left  lit- 
tle, in  essentials,  for  Tennyson  to  add  in  his  Passing  of 
Arthur. 

This  new  material  for  fiction  was  eagerly  seized  upon  by 
the  Norman  romancers.  Tlie  story  of  Arthur  drew  to  itself 
other  stories  which  were  afloat.  Walter  Map,  a  gentleman 
of  the  court  of  Henry  II.,  in  two  French  prose  romances 
connected  with  it  the  church  legend  of  the  Sangreal,  or  holy 
cup,  from  which  Christ  had  drunk  at  his  last  supper,  and 
which  Joseph  of  Arimathea  had  afterward  brought  to  En- 
gland. Then  it  miraculously  disappeared  and  became  thence- 
forth the  occasion  of  knightly  quest,  the  mystic  symbol  of 
the  object  of  the  soul's  desire,  an  adventure  only  to  be 
achieved  by  the  maiden  knight,  Galahad,  the  son  of  that 
Launcelot  who  in  the  romances  had  taken  the  place  of 
Modred  in  Geoffrey's  history  as  the  paramour  of  Queen 
Guenever.  In  like  manner  the  love-story  of  Tristan  and 
Isolde,  which  came  probably  from  Brittany  or  Cornwall,  was 
joined  by  other  romancers  to  the  Arthur-saga. 

Thus  there  grew  up  a  great  epic  cycle  of  Arthurian 
romance,  with  a  fixed  shape  and  a  unity  and  vitality  which 
have  prolonged  it  to  our  own  day  and  rendered  it  capa- 
ble of  a  deeper  and  more  spiritual  treatment  and  a  more 
artistic  handling  by  such  modern  English  poets  as  Tenny- 
son in  his  Idyls  of  the  King,  Matthew  Arnold,  Swin- 
burne, and  many  others.  There  were  innumerable  Arthur 
romances  in  prose  and  verse,  in  Anglo-Norman  and  conti- 
nental French  dialects,  in  English,  in  German,  and  in  other 
tongues.     But  the  final  form  which  the  saga  took  in  mediae- 


Feom  the  Conquest  to  Chaucer.  17 

val  England  was  the  prose  Morte  Dartur  of  Sir  Thomas 
Malory,  composed  at  the  close  of  the  15th  century.  This 
was  a  digest  of  the  earlier  romances,  and  is  Tennyson's  main 
authority. 

Beside  the  literature  of  the  knight  was  the  literature  of 
the  cloister.  There  is  a  considerable  body  of  religious  writ- 
ing in  early  English,  consisting  of  homilies  in  prose  and 
verse,  books  of  devotion,  like  the  Aneren  Riwle  (Rule  of 
Anchoresses),  1225,  and  the  Ayenhite  of  Inwyt  (Remorse  of 
Conscience),  1340,  in  prose  ;  the  Handlyng  Sinne,  1303,  the 
Cursor  Mundi,  1320,  and  the  Pricke  of  Conscience,  1340,  in 
verse  ;  metrical  renderings  of  the  Psalter,  the  Pater  Noster, 
the  Creed,  and  the  Ten  Commandments ;  the  Gospels  for  the 
Day,  such  as  the  Ormulum,  or  Book  of  Orm,  1205 ;  legends 
and  miracles  of  saints  ;  poems  in  praise  of  virginity,  on  the 
contempt  of  the  world,  on  the  five  joys  of  the  Virgin,  the 
five  wounds  of  Christ,  the  eleven  pains  of  hell,  the  seven 
deadly  sins,  the  fifteen  tokens  of  the  coming  judgment ;  and 
dialogues  between  the  soul  and  the  body.  These  were  the 
work  not  only  of  the  monks,  but  also  of  the  begging 
friars,  and  in  smaller  part  of  the  secular  or  parish  clergy. 
They  are  full  of  the  ascetic  piety  and  superstition  of  the 
Middle  Age,  the  childish  belief  in  the  marvelous,  the 
allegorical  interpretation  of  Scripture  texts,  the  grotesque 
material  horrors  of  hell  with  its  grisly  fiends,  the  vileness 
of  the  human  body  and  the  loathsome  details  of  its  cor- 
ruption after  death.  Now  and  then  a  single  poem  rises 
above  the  tedious  and  hideous  barbarism  of  the  general 
level  of  this  monkish  literature,  either  from  a  more  in- 
tensely personal  feeling  in  the  poet,  or  from  an  occasional 
grace  or  beauty  in  his  verse.  A  poem  so  distinguished  is, 
for  example,  A  Luve  Hon  (A  Love  Counsel),  by  the  Min- 
orite friar,  Thomas  de  Hales,  one  stanza  of  which  recalls 
the  French  poet  Villon's  Balade  of  Dead  Ladies,  with  its 
refrain — 


18  From  Chaucer  to  Tenkyson. 

Mais  ou  sont  lea  neigea  d'antan  ? 

"  Where  are  the  snows  of  yester  year  ?  " 

Where  is  Paris  and  Hel^yne 

That  weren  so  bright  and  fair  of  blee* 
Amadas,  Tristan,  and  Ideyne 

Yseude  and  alle  the,' 
Hector  with  his  sharpe  main, 

And  Caesar  rich  in  worldea  fee? 
They  beth  ygliden  out  of  the  reign* 

As  the  shaft  is  of  the  clee.* 

A  few  early  English  poems  on  secular  subjects  are  also 
worthy  of  mention,  among  others,  The  Owl  and  the  Night- 
ingale, generally  assigned  to  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  (1216- 
1272),  an  estrif,  or  dispute,  in  which  the  owl  represents  the 
ascetic  and  the  nightingale  the  aesthetic  view  of  life.  The 
debate  is  conducted  with  much  animation  and  a  spirited  use 
of  proverbial  wisdom.  The  Land  of  Cokaygne  is  an  amus- 
ing little  poem  of  some  two  hundred  lines,. belonging  to  the 
class  oi  fabliaux,  short  humorous  tales  or  satirical  pieces  in 
verse.  It  describes  a  lubber-land,  or  fool's  paradise,  where 
the  geese  fly  down  all  roasted  on  the  spit,  bringing  garlic  in 
their  bills  for  their  dressing,  and  where  there  is  a  nunnery 
upon  a  river  of  sweet  milk,  and  an  abbey  of  white  monks 
and  gray,  whose  walls,  like  the  hall  of  little  King  Pepin,  are 
"  of  pie-crust  and  pastry  crust,"  with  flouren  cakes  for  the 
shingles  and  fat  puddings  for  the  pins. 

There  are  a  few  songs  dating  from  about  1300,  and  mostly 
found  in  a  single  collection  (Harl.  MS.,  2253),  which  are 
almost  the  only  English  verse  before  Chaucer  that  has  any 
sweetness  to  a  modern  ear.  They  are  written  in  French 
strophic  forms  in  the  southern  dialect,  and  sometimes  have 
an  intermixture  of  French  and  Latin  lines.  They  are  mu- 
sical, fresh,  simple,  and  many  of  them  very  pretty.  They 
celebrate  the  gladness  of  spring  with  its  cuckoos  and  throstle- 
cocks,  its  daisies  and  woodruff. 

'Hue.  •Those.  'Realm.  *  Bowstring. 


From  the  Conquest  to  Chaucee.       19 

When  the  nightingale  sings  the  woodes  waxen  green ; 
Leaf  and  grass  and  blossom  spring  in  Averil,  I  ween, 
^       Ajid  love  is  to  my  herte  gone  with  a  spear  so  keen, 

Night  and  day  my  blood  it  drinks,  my  herte  doth  me  tene.* 

Others  are  love  plaints  to  "  Alysoun  "  or  some  other  lady 
whose  "  name  is  in  a  note  of  the  nightingale ;  "  whose  eyes 
are  as  gray  as  glass,  and  her  skin  as  "  red  as  rose  on  ris."* 
Some  employ  a  burden  or  refrain. 

Blow,  northern  wind, 

Blow  thou  me  my  sweeting. 

Blow,  northern  wind,  blow,  blow,  blow  I 

Others  are  touched  with  a  light  melancholy  at  the  coming  of 

winter. 

"Winter  wakeneth  all  my  care 

Now  these  leaves  waxeth  bare, 

Oft  I  sigh  and  moiirne  sare 

When  it  cometh  in  my  thought 

Of  this  worldes  joy,  how  it  goeth  all  to  nought. 

Some  of  these  poems  are  love  songs  to  Christ  or  the  Virgin, 
composed  in  the  warm  language  of  earthly  passion.  The 
sentiment  of  chivalry  united  with  the  ecstatic  reveries  of  the 
cloister  had  produced  Mariolatry,  and  the  imagery  of  the 
Song  of  Solomon,  in  which  Christ  wooes  the  soul,  had  made 
this  feeling  of  divine  love  familiar.  Toward  the  end  of  the 
13th  century  a  collection  of  lives  of  saints,  a  sort  of  English 
Golden  Legend,  was  prepared  at  the  great  abbey  of  Glouces- 
ter for  use  on  saints'  days.  The  legends  were  chosen  partly 
from  the  hagiology  of  the  Church  Catholic,  as  the  lives  of 
Margaret,  Christopher,  and  Michael ;  partly  from  the  calen- 
dar of  the  English  Church,  as  the  lives  of  St.  Thomas  of  Can- 
terbury, and  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  Dunstan,  Swithin — who  is 
mentioned  by  Shakspere — and  Kenelm,  whose  life  is  quoted 
by  Chaucer  in   the  Konne  Preste's   Tale.     The   verse   was 

•  Pain.  *  Branch. 


20  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

clumsy  and  the  style  monotonous,  but  an  imaginative  touch 
here  and  there  has  furnished  a  hint  to  later  poets.  Thus  the 
legend  of  St.  Brandan's  search  for  the  earthly  paradise  has 
been  treated  by  Matthew  Arnold  and  William  Morris. 

About  the  middle  of  the  14th  century  there  was  a  revival 
of  the  Old  English  alliterative  verse  in  romances  like 
William  and  the  Werewolf ,  and  Sir  Gawayne,  and  in  relig- 
ious pieces  such  as  Clannesse  (purity),  Patience,  and  The 
Perle,  the  last  named  a  mystical  poem  of  much  beauty,  in 
which  a  bereaved  father  sees  a  vision  of  his  daughter  among 
the  glorified.  Some  of  these  employed  rhyme  as  well  as 
alliteration.  They  are  in  the  West  Midland  dialect,  although 
Chaucer  implies  that  alliteration  was  most  common  in  the 
north.  "  I  am  a  sotherne  man,"  says  the  parson  in  the 
Canterbury  Tales.  "I  cannot  geste  rom,  ram,  ruf,  by  my 
letter."  But  the  most  important  of  the  alliterative  poems 
was  the  Vision  of  William  concerning  Piers  the  Plow- 
man. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  14th  century  French  had  ceased 
to  be  the  mother-tongue  of  any  considerable  part  of  the 
population  of  England.  By  a  statute  of  Edward  III.,  in 
1362,  it  was  displaced  from  the  law  courts.  By  1386  English 
had  taken  its  place  in  the  schools.  The  Anglo-Norman 
dialect  had  grown  corrupt,  and  Chaucer  contrasts  the  French 
of  Paris  with  the  provincial  French  spoken  by  his  prioress, 
"after  the  scole  of  Stratford-atte-Bowe."  The  native  En- 
glish genius  was  also  beginning  to  assert  itself,  roused  in 
part,  perhaps,  by  the  English  victories  in  the  wars  of  Edward 
III.  against  the  French.  It  was  the  bows  of  the  English 
yeomanry  that  won  the  fight  at  Crecy,  fully  as  much  as  the 
prowess  of  the  Norman  baronage.  But  at  home  the  times 
were  bad.  Heavy  taxes  and  the  repeated  visitations  of  the 
pestilence,  or  Black  Death,  pressed  upon  the  poor  and  wasted 
the  land.  The  Church  was  corrupt ;  the  mendicant  orders 
had  grown  enormously  wealthy,  and  the   country  was  eaten 


Feom  the  Conquest  to  Chaucer.  21 

np  by  a  swarm  of  begging  friars,  pardoners,  and  apparitors. 
That  social  discontent  was  fermenting  among  the  lower 
classes  which  finally  issued  in  the  communistic  uprising  of 
the  peasantry  under  Wat  Tyler  and  Jack  Straw. 

This  state  of  things  is  reflected  in  the  Vision  of  Piers 
Plowman,  written  as  early  as  1362,  by  William  Langland,  a 
tonsured  clerk  of  the  west  country.  It  is  in  form  an  allegory, 
and  bears  some  resemblance  to  the  later  and  more  famous 
allegory  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  The  poet  falls  asleep  on 
the  Malvern  Hills,  in  Worcestershire,  and  has  a  vision  of  a 
"fair  field  full  of  folk,"  representing  the  world  with  its 
various  conditions  of  men.  There  were  pilgi'ims  and  pal- 
mers ;  hermits  with  hooked  staves,  who  went  to  Walsing- 
ham — and  their  wenches  after  them — great  lubbers  and  long 
that  were  loth  to  work  ;  friars  glossing  the  Gospel  for  their 
own  profit ;  pardoners  cheating  the  people  with  relics  and 
indulgences ;  parish  priests  who  forsook  their  parishes — that 
had  been  poor  since  the  pestilence  time — and  went  to  Lon- 
don to  sing  there  for  simony  ;  bishops,  archbishops,  and  dea- 
cons, who  got  themselves  fat  clerkships  in  the  Exchequer, 
or  King's  Bench  ;  in  short,  all  manner  of  lazy  and  corrupt 
ecclesiastics.  A  lady,  who  represents  holy  Church,  then 
appears  to  the  dreamer,  explains  to  him  the  meaning  of  his 
vision,  and  reads  him  a  sermon  the  text  of  which  is,  "  When 
all  treasure  is  tried,  truth  is  the  best."  A  number  of  other 
allegorical  figures  are  next  introduced,  Conscience,  Reason, 
Meed,  Simony,  Falsehood,  etc.,  and  after  a  series  of  speeches 
and  adventures,  a  second  vision  begins  in  which  the  seven 
deadly  sins  pass  before  the  poet  in  a  succession  of  graphic 
impersonations  ;  and  finally  all  the  characters  set  out  on  a 
pilgrimage  in  search  of  St.  Truth,  finding  no  guide  to  direct 
them  save  Piers  the  Plowman,  who  stands  for  the  simple, 
pious  laboring  man,  the  sound  heart  of  the  English  common 
folk.  The  poem  was  originally  in  eight  divisions  or 
"  passus,"  to  which  was  added  a  continuation  in  three  parts. 


22  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Vita  Do  Wei,  Do  Bet,  and  Do  Best.  About  1377  the  whole 
was  greatly  enlarged  by  the  author. 

Piers  Plowman  was  the  first  extended  literary  work  after 
the  Conquest  which  was  purely  English  in  character.  It 
owed  nothing  to  France  but  the  allegorical  cast  which  the 
Roman  de  la  Pose  had  made  fashionable  in  both  countries. 
But  even  here  such  personified  abstractions  as  Langland's 
Fair-speech  and  Work-when-time-is,  remind  us  less  of  the 
Fraunchise,  Bel-amour,  and  Fals-semblaunt  of  the  French 
courtly  allegories  than  of  Bunyan's  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman, 
and  even  of  such  Puritan  names  as  Praise-God  Barebones,  and 
Zeal-of-the-land  Busy.  The  poem  is  full  of  English  moral 
seriousness,  of  shrewd  humor,  the  hatred  of  a  lie,  the  homely 
English  love  for  reality.  It  has  little  unity  of  plan,  but  is 
rather  a  series  of  episodes,  discourses,  parables,  and  scenes. 
It  is  all  astir  with  the  actual  life  of  the  time.  We  see  the 
gossips  gathered  in  the  ale-house  of  Betun  the  brewster,  and 
the  pastry  cooks  in  the  London  streets  crying  "  Hote  pies, 
bote!  Good  gees  and  grys.'  Go  we  dine,  go  we  !  "  Had 
Langland  not  linked  his  literary  fortunes  with  an  uncouth 
and  obsolescent  verse,  and  had  he  possessed  a  finer  artistic 
sense  and  a  higher  poetic  imagination,  his  book  might  have 
been,  like  Chaucer's,  among  the  lasting  glories  of  our  tongue. 
As  it  is,  it  is  forgotten  by  all  but  professional  students  of 
literature  and  history.  Its  popularity  in  its  own  day  is 
shown  by  the  number  of  MSS.  which  are  extant,  and  by 
imitations,  such  as  Piers  the  PlowmarCs  Grede  (1394),  and 
the  Plowm,an''s  Tale,  for  a  long  time  wrongly  inserted  in  the 
Canterbury  Tales.  Piers  became  a  kind  of  typical  figure, 
like  the  French  peasant,  Jacques  Bonhomme,  and  was  ap- 
pealed to  as  such  by  the  Protestant  reformers  of  the  16th 
century. 

The  attack  upon  the  growing  corruptions  of  the  Church 
was  made  more  systematically,  and  from  the  stand-point  of 

'  Pigs. 


Feom  the  Conquest  to  Chauceb.  23 

a  theologian  rather  than  of  a  popular  moralist  and  satirist, 
by  John  Wiclif,  the  rector  of  Lutterworth  and  professor  of 
divinity  in  Baliol  College,  Oxford.  In  a  series  of  Latin 
and  English  tracts  he  made  war  against  indulgences,  pilgrim- 
ages, images,  oblations,  the  friars,  the  pope,  and  the  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation.  But  his  greatest  service  to  England  was 
his  translation  of  the  Bible,  the  first  complete  version  in  the 
mother-tongue.  This  he  made  about  1380,  with  the  help  of 
Nicholas  Hereford,  and  a  revision  of  it  was  made  by  another 
disciple.  Purvey,  some  ten  years  later.  There  was  no  knowl- 
edge of  Hebrew  or  Greek  in  England  at,  that  time,  and  the 
Wiclifite  versions  were  made  not  from  the  original  tongues 
but  from  the  Latin  Vulgate.  In  his  anxiety  to  make  his 
rendering  close,  and  mindful,  perhaps,  of  the  warning  in  the 
Apocalypse,  "  If  any  man  shall  take  away  from  the  words  of 
the  book  of  this  prophecy,  God  shall  take  away  his  part  out 
of  the  book  of  life,"  AYiclif  followed  the  Latin  order  of 
construction  so  literally  as  to  make  rather  awkward  English, 
translating,  for  example,  Quib  sibi  viclt  hoc  somniumf  by 
What  to  itself  wole^  this  sioevenP'  Purvey's  revision  was 
somewhat  freer  and  more  idiomatic.  In  the  reigns  of  Henry 
IV.  and  V.  it  was  forbidden  to  read  or  to  have  any  of 
Wiclifs  writings.  Such  of  them  as  could  be  seized  were 
publicly  burned.  In  spite  of  this,  copies  of  his  Bible  circu- 
lated secretly  in  great  numbers.  Forshall  and  Madden,  in 
their  great  edition  (1850),  enumerate  one  hundred  and  fifty 
MSS.  which  had  been  consulted  by  them.  Later  translators, 
like  Tyndale  and  the  makers  of  the  Authorized  Version,  or 
"King  James's  Bible"  (16 11), folio  wed  Wiclif 's  language  in 
many  instances  ;  so  that  he  was,  in  truth,  the  first  author  of 
our  biblical  dialect  and  the  founder  of  that  great  monument 
of  noble  English  which  has  been  the  main  conservative  influ- 
ence in  the  mother-tongue,  holding  it  fast  to  many  strong, 
pithy  words  and  idioms  that  would  else  have  been  lost.  In 
'  "Will.  *  Dream. 


24  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

1415,  some  thirty  years  after  Wiclif  s  death,  by  decree  of 
the  Council  of  Constance,  his  bones  were  dug  up  from  the 
soil  of  Lutterworth  chancel  and  burned,  and  the  ashes  cast 
into  the  Swift.  "  The  brook,"  says  Thomas  Fuller,  in  his 
Church  Sistory,  "  did  convey  his  ashes  into  Avon  ;  Avon 
into  Severn ;  Severn  into  the  narrow  seas  ;  they  into  the 
main  ocean.  And  thus  the  ashes  of  Wiclif  are  the  emblem 
of  his  doctrine,  which  now  is  dispersed  all  the  world  over." 
Although  the  writings  thus  far  mentioned  are  of  very  high 
interest  to  the  student  of  the  English  language  and  the  histo- 
rian of  English  manners  and  culture,  they  cannot  be  said  to 
have  much  importance  as  mere  literature.  But  in  Geoffrey 
Chaucer  (died  1400)  we  meet  with  a  poet  of  the  first  rank, 
whose  works  are  increasingly  read  and  will  always  con- 
tinue to  be  a  source  of  delight  and  refreshment  to  the  general 
reader  as  well  as  a  "  well  of  English  undefiled  "  to  the  pro- 
fessional man  of  letters.  With  the  exception  of  Dante, 
Chaucer  was  the  greatest  of  the  poets  of  mediaeval  Europe, 
and  he  remains  one  of  the  greatest  of  English  poets,  and 
certainly  the  foremost  of  English  story  tellers  in  verse.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  London  vintner,and  was  in  his  youth  in  the 
service  of  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  one  of  the  sons  of 
Edward  III.  He  made  a  campaign  in  France  in  1359-60, 
when  he  was  taken  prisoner.  Afterward  he  was  attached  to 
the  court  and  received  numerous  favors  and  appointments. 
He  was  sent  on  several  diplomatic  missions  by  the  king, 
three  of  them  to  Italy,  where,  in  all  probability,  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  new  Italian  literature,  the  writings  of 
Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio.  He  was  appointed  at 
different  times  comptroller  of  the  wool  customs,  comp- 
troller of  petty  customs,  and  clerk  of  the  works.  He  sat 
for  Kent  in  Parliament,  and  he  received  pensions  from  three 
successive  kings.  He  was  a  man  of  business  as  well  as  books, 
and  he  loved  men  and  nature  no  less  than  study.  He  knew 
his  world  ;  he  "  saw  life  steadily  and  saw  it  whole."    Living 


Feom  the  Conquest  to  Chaucek.       25 

at  the  center  of  English  social  and  political  life,  and  resort- 
ing to  tTie  court  of  Edward  III.,  then  the  most  brilliant  in 
Europe,  Chaucer  was  an  eye-witness  of  those  feudal  pomps 
which  fill  the  high-colored  pages  of  his  contemporary,  the 
French  chronicler,  Froissart.  His  description  of  a  tourna- 
ment in  the  KnigMs  Tale,  is  unexcelled  for  spirit  and  detail. 
He  was  familiar  with  dances,  feasts,  state  ceremonies,  and 
all  the  life  of  the  baronial  castle,  in  bower  and  hall  :  the 
"  trompes  with  the  loude  minstralcie,"  the  heralds,  the  ladies, 
and  the  squires.     He  knew — 

What  hawkes  sitten  on  the  perch  above, 
What  houndes  liggen  *  on  the  floor  adown. 

But  his  sympathy  reached  no  less  the  life  of  the  lowly ;  the 
poor  widow  in  her  narrow  cottage,  and  that  "  trewe  swyn- 
kere "  and  a  good,"  the  plowman  whom  Langland  had  made 
the  hero  of  his  vision.  He  is,  more  than  all  English  poets, 
the  poet  of  the  lusty  spring,  of  "  Aprille  with  her  showres 
sweet "  and  the  *'  f  oules  song ; "  of  "  May  with  all  her  floures 
and  her  green;"  of  the  new  leaves  in  the  wood,  and  the 
meadows  new  powdered  with  the  daisy,  the  mystic  Margue- 
rite of  his  Legend  of  Good  Women.  A  fresh  vernal  air 
blows  through  all  his  pages. 

In  Chaucer's  earlier  works,  such  as  the  translation  of  the 
Momaunt  of  the  Rose  (if  that  be  his),  the  Boke  of  the 
Duchesse^  the  Parlament  of  FouleSy  the  Hous  of  Fame,  as 
well  as  in  the  Legend  of  Good  Wbm,en,  which  was  later,  the 
inspiration  of  the  French  court  poetry  of  the  13th  and  14th 
centuries  is  manifest.  He  retains  in  them  the  mediaeval 
machinery  of  allegories  and  dreams,  the  elaborate  descrip- 
tions of  palaces,  temples,  portraitures,  etc.,  which  had  been 
made  fashionable  in  France  by  such  poems  as  Guillaume 
de  Lorris's  Roman  de  la  Rose,  and  Jean  Machault's  La  Fon- 
taine Amoureuse.     In  some  of  these  the  influence  of  Italian 

'  Lia  *  Laborer. 


26  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

poetry  is  also  perceptible.  There  are  suggestions  from 
Dante,  for  example,  in  the  Parlament  of  Foules  and  the 
ffoits  of  Fame^  and  Troilus  and  Cresseide  is  a  free  handling 
rather  than  a  translation  of  Boccaccio's  Filostrato.  In  all 
of  these  there  are  passages  of  great  beauty  and  force.  Had 
Chaucer  written  nothing  else,  he  would  still  have  been  remem- 
bered as  the  most  accomplished  English  poet  of  his  time,  but 
he  would  not  have  risen  to  the  rank  which  he  now  occupies, 
as  one  of  the  greatest  English  poets  of  all  time.  This  posi- 
tion he  owes  to  his  masterpiece,  tlie  Canterbury  Tales.  Here 
he  abandoned  the  imitation  of  foreign  models  and  the  arti- 
ficial literary  fashions  of  his  age,  and  wrote  of  real  life  from 
his  own  ripe  knowledge  of  men  and  things. 

The  Canterbury  Tales  are  a  collection  of  stories  written 
at  different  times,  but  put  together,  probably,  toward  the 
close  of  his  life.  The  frame- woi'k  into  which  they  are 
fitted  is  one  of  the  happiest  ever  devised.  A  number  of 
pilgrims  who  are  going  on  horseback  to  the  shrine  of  St. 
Thomas  h,  Becket,  at  Canterbury,  meet  at  the  Tabard  Inn, 
in  Southwark,  a  suburb  of  London.  The  jolly  host  of  the 
Tabard,  Harry  Bailey,  proposes  that  on  their  way  to  Canter- 
bury, each  of  the  company  shall  tell  two  tales,  and  two  more 
on  their  way  back,  and  that  the  one  who  tells  the  best  shall 
have  a  supper  at  the  cost  of  the  rest  when  they  return  to 
the  inn.  He  himself  accompanies  them  as  judge  and  "  re- 
porter." In  the  setting  of  the  stories  there  is  thus  a  con- 
stant feeling  of  movement  and  the  air  of  all  outdoors.  The 
little  "  head-links  "  and  "  end-links  "  which  bind  them  to- 
gether give  incidents  of  the  journey  and  glimpses  of  the 
talk  of  the  pilgrims,  sometimes  amounting,  as  in  the  prologue 
of  the  "Wife  of  Bath,  to  full  and  almost  dramatic  character- 
sketches.  The  stories,  too,  are  dramatically  suited  to  the  nar- 
rators. The  general  prologue  is  a  series  of  such  character- 
sketches,  the  most  perfect  in  English  poetry.  The  portraits 
of  the  pilgrims  are  illuminated  with  the  soft  brilliancy  and 


Fbom  thb  Conquest  to  Chaucee.  27 

the  miirate  loving  fidelity  of  the  miniatures  in  the  old  missals, 
and  with  the  same  quaint  precision  in  traits  of  expression  and  in 
costume.  The  pilgrims  are  not  all  such  as  one  would  meet 
nowadays  at  an  English  inn.  The  presence  of  a  knight,  a 
squire,  a  yeoman  archer,  and  especially  of  so  many  kinds  of 
ecclesiastics,  a  nun,  a  friar,  a  monk,  a  pardoner,  and  a  somp- 
nour  or  apparitor,  reminds  us  that  the  England  of  that  day 
must  have  been  less  like  Protestant  England,  as  we  know  it, 
than  like  the  Italy  of  some  fifty  years  ago.  But  however 
the  outward  face  of  society  may  have  changed,  the  Canter- 
bury pilgrims  remain,  in  Chaucer's  descriptions,  living  and 
universal  types  of  human  nature.  The  Canterbury  Tales  are 
twenty-four  in  number.  There  were  thirty-two  pilgrims,  so 
that  if  finished  as  designed  the  whole  collection  would  have 
numbered  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  stories. 

Chaucer  is  the  bright  consummate  flower  of  the  English 
Middle  Age.  Like  many  another  great  poet  he  put  the  final 
touch  to  the  various  literary  forms  that  he  found  in  cultiva- 
tion. Thus  his  KnigMs  Tale,  based  upon  Boccaccio's 
Teseide,  is  the  best  of  English  mediaeval  romances.  And 
yet  the  Mime  of  Sir  Thopas,  who  goes  seeking  an  elf  queen 
for  his  mate,  and  is  encountered  by  the  giant  Sir  Olifaunt, 
burlesques  these  same  romances  with  their  impossible  advent- 
ures and  their  tedious  rambling  descriptions.  The  tales  of 
the  prioress  and  the  second  nun  are  saints'  legends.  The 
Monies  Tale  is  a  set  of  dry,  moral  apologues  in  the  manner 
of  his  contemporary,  the  "  moral  Gower."  The  stories  told 
by  the  reeve,  miller,  friar,  sompnour,  shipman,  and  merchant 
belong  to  the  class  of  fabliaux,  a  few  of  which  existed  in 
English,  such  as  Dame  Siriz,  the  Lay  of  the  Ash,  and  the 
Land  of  Cokaygne,  already  mentioned.  The  Nonne  Prestos 
Tale,  likewise,  which  Dryden  modernized  with  admirable 
humor,  was  of  the  class  of  fabliav/x,,  and  was  suggest- 
ed by  a  little  poem  in  forty  lines,  Dou  (Joe  et  Werpil,  by 
Marie  de  France,  a  Norman  poetess  of  the  13th  century.     It 


28  From  Chaucee  to  Tennyson. 

belonged,  like  the  early  English  poem  of  The  Fox  and  the 
Wolf,  to  the  popular  animal  saga  of  Reynard  the  Fox.  The 
Franklin's  Tale,  whose  scene  is  Brittany,  and  the  Wife  of 
JBath^s  Tale  which  is  laid  in  the  time  of  the  British  Arthur, 
belong  to  the  class  of  French  lais,  serious  metrical  tales 
shorter  than  the  romance  and  of  Breton  origin,  the  best  rep- 
resentativ^es  of  which  are  the  elegant  and  graceful  lais  of 
Marie  de  France. 

Chaucer  was  our  first  great  master  of  laughter  and  of  tears. 
His  serious  poetry  is  full  of  the  tenderest  pathos.  His 
loosest  tales  are  delightfully  humorous  and  life«-like.  He  is 
the  kindliest  of  satirists.  The  knavery,  greed,  and  hypoc- 
risy of  the  begging  friars  and  the  sellers  of  indulgences  are 
exposed  by  him  as  pitilessly  as  by  Langland  and  Wiclif,  though 
his  mood  is  not,  like  theirs,  one  of  stern,  moral  indignation, 
but  rather  the  good-natured  scorn  of  a  man  of  the  world. 
His  charity  is  broad  enough  to  cover  even  the  corrupt  somp- 
nour,  of  whom  he  says. 

And  yet  in  sooth  he  was  a  good  felawe. 

Whether  he  shared  Wiclif's  opinions  is  unknown,  but  John 
of  Gaunt,  the  Duke  of  Lancaster  and  father  of  Henry  IV., 
who  was  Chaucer's  life-long  patron,  was  likewise  Wiclif's 
great  upholder  against  the  persecution  of  the  bishops.  It  is, 
perhaps,  not  without  significance  that  the  poor  parson  in  the 
Canterbury  Tales,  the  only  one  of  his  ecclesiastical  pilgrims 
whom  Chaucer  treats  with  respect,  is  suspected  by  the  host 
of  the  Tabard  to  be  a  "  loller,"  that  is,  a  Lollard,  or  disciple 
of  Wiclif,  and  that,  because  he  objects  to  the  jovial  inn- 
keeper's swearing  "  by  Goddes  bones." 

Chaucer's  English  is  nearly  as  easy  for  a  modern  reader  as 
Shakspere's,  and  few  of  his  words  have  become  obsolete. 
His  verse,  when  rightly  read,  is  correct  and  melodious.  The 
early  English  was,  in  some  respects,  "  more  sweet  upon  the 
tongue  "  than  the  modern  language.     The  vowels  had  their 


From  the  Conquest  to  Chaucer.  29 

broad  Italian  sounds,  and  the  speech  was  full  of  soft  gut- 
terals  and  vocalic  syllables,  like  the  endings  en,  es,  e,  which 
made  feminine  rhymes  and  kept  the  consonants  from  coming 
harshly  together. 

Great  poet  as  Chaucer  was,  he  was  not  quite  free  from  the 
literary  weakness  of  his  time.  He  relapses  sometimes 
into  the  babbling  style  of  the  old  chroniclers  and  legend 
writers ;  cites  "  auctours "  and  gives  long  catalogues  of 
names  and  objects  with  a  naive  display  of  learning  ;  and 
introduces  vulgar  details  in  his  most  exquisite  passages. 
There  is  something  childish  about  almost  all  the  thought 
and  art  of  the  Middle  Ages — at  least  outside  of  Italy, 
where  classical  models  and  traditions  never  quite  lost 
their  hold.  But  Chaucer's  artlessness  is  half  the  secret 
of  his  wonderful  ease  in  story-telling,  and  is  so  engaging 
that,  like  a  child's  sweet  unconsciousness,  one  would  not 
wish  it  otherwise. 

The  Canterbury  Tales  had  shown  of  what  high  uses  the 
English  language  was  capable,  but  the  curiously  trilingual 
condition  of  literature  still  continued.  French  was  spoken 
in  the  proceedings  of  Parliament  as  late  as  the  reign  of  Henry 
VI.  (1422-1471).  Chaucer's  contemporary,  John  Gower, 
wrote  his  Fbcc  Clamantis  in  Latin,  his  Speculum  Meditantis 
(a  lost  poem),  and  a  number  of  ballades  in  Parisian  French, 
and  his  Confessio  Amantis  (1393)  in  English.  The  last 
named  is  a  dreary,  pedantic  work,  in  some  fifteen  thou- 
sand smooth,  monotonous,  eight-syllabled  couplets,  in  which 
Grande  Amour  instructs  the  lover  how  to  get  the  love  of 
Bel  Pucel. 


1.  Early  English  Literature.  Bernhard  ten  Brink.  Trans- 
lated from  the  German  by  H.  M.  Kennedy.  New  York: 
Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  1883. 

2.  Morris  and  Skeat's  Specimens  of  Early  English.  (Clar- 
endon Press  Series.)  Oxford. 


80  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

3.  The  Vision  of  "William  concerning  Piers  the  Plowman. 
Edited  by  W.  W.  Skeat.     Oxford,  1886. 

4.  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales.    Tyrwhitt's  Edition.    New 
York:  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1883. 

5.  The  Poetical  Works  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer.     Edited  by 
Richard  Morris.     London:  Bell  &  Daldy  (6  volumes.) 


Fbom  Chaucee  to  Spenseb,  31 

CHAPTER  II. 

PROM  CHAUCER  TO  SPENSER. 
1400-1599. 

The  15th  century  was  a  barren  period  in  English  literary 
histoiy.  It  was  nearly  two  hundred  years  after  Chaucer's 
death  before  any  poet  came  whose  name  can  be  written 
in  the  same  line  with  his.  He  was  followed  at  once  by  a 
number  of  imitators  who  caught  the  trick  of  his  language 
and  verse,  but  lacked  the  genius  to  make  any  fine  use  of 
them.  The  manner  of  a  true  poet  may  be  learned,  but  his 
style,  in  the  high  sense  of  the  word,  remains  his  own  secret. 
Some  of  the  poems  which  have  been  attributed  to  Chaucer 
and  printed  in  editions  of  his  works,  as  the  Court  of  Love,  the 
Ii'loicer  and  the  Leaf  the  Cuckow  and  the  Nightingale,  are 
now  regarded  by  many  scholars  as  the  work  of  later  writers. 
If  not  Chaucer's,  they  are  of  Chaucer's  school,  and  the  first 
two,  at  least,  are  very  pretty  poems  after  the  fashion  of  his 
minor  pieces,  such  as  the  Boke  of  the  Duchesse  and  the  Parla- 
ment  of  Foules. 

Among  his  professed  disciples  was  Thomas  Occleve,  a 
dull  rhymer,  who,  in  his  Governail  of  Princes,  a  didactic 
poem  translated  from  the  Latin  about  1413,  drew,  or  caused  to 
be  drawn,  on  the  margin  of  his  MS.  a  colored  portrait  of 
his  "  maister  dere  and  fader  reverent." 

This  londes  verray  tresour  and  richesse 
Dethe  by  thy  dethe  hath  harm  irreparable 
Unto  us  done ;  hlr  vengeable  duresse 
Dispoiled  hath  this  londe  of  the  swetn&se 
Of  Rhetoryk. 

Another  versifier  of  this  same  generation  was  John  Lyd- 
gate,  a  Benedictine  monk  of  the  Abbey  of  Bury  St.  Edmunds, 


82  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

in  Suffolk,  a  very  prolix  writer,  who  composed,  among  other 
things,  the  Story  of  Thebes,  as  an  addition  to  the  Canter- 
bury Tales.  His  ballad  of  London  Lyckpenny,  recounting 
the  adventures  of  a  countryman  who  goes  to  the  law  courts 
at  Westminster  in  search  of  justice — 

But  for  lack  of  mony  I  could  not  spede — 

is  of  interest  for  the  glimpse  that  it  gives  us  of  London  street 
life. 

Chaucer's  influence  wrought  more  fruitfully  in  Scotland, 
whither  it  was  carried  by  James  L,  who  had  been  captured 
by  the  English  when  a  boy  of  eleven,  and  brought  up  at 
"Windsor  as  a  prisoner  of  state.  There  he  wrote  during  the 
reign  of  Henry  V.  (1413-1422)  a  poem  in  six  cantos,  entitled 
the  icing's  Quhair  (King's  Book),  in  Chaucer's  seven-lined 
stanza,  which  had  been  employed  by  Lydgate  in  his  Falls  of 
Princes  (from  Boccaccio),  and  which  was  afterward  called 
the  "  rime  royal,"  from  its  use  by  King  James.  The  King's 
Quhair  tells  how  the  poet,  on  a  May  morning,  looks  from 
the  window  of  his  prison  chamber  into  the  castle  garden  full 
of  alleys,  hawthorn  hedges,  and  fair  arbors  set  with 
The  slaarpe,  greene,  sweete  juniper. 

He  was  listening  to  "  the  little  sweete  nightingale,"  when 
suddenly  casting  down  his  eyes  he  saw  a  lady  walking  in 
the  garden,  and  at  once  his  "heart  became  her  thrall." 
The  incident  is  precisely  like  Palamon's  first  sight  of  Emily 
in  Chaucer's  KnigMs  Tale,  and  almost  in  the  very  words  of 
Palamon  the  poet  addresses  his  lady : 

Ah,  sweet,  are  ye  a  worldly  creature 

Or  heavenly  thing  in  likeness  of  nature  ? 

Or  are  ye  very  Nature,  the  goddess, 

That  have  depainted  with  your  heavenly  hand 

This  garden  full  of  flowres  as  they  stand? 

Then,  after  a  vision  in  the  taste  of  the  age,  in  which  the 
royal  prisoner  is  transported  in  turn  to  the  courts  of  VenuS; 


Feom  Chaucek  to  Spenseb.  33 

Minerva,  and  Fortune,  and  receives  their  instruction  in  the 
duties  belonging  to  Love's  service,  he  wakes  from  sleep  and 
a  white  turtle-dove  brings  to  his  window  a  spray  of  red  gilly 
flowers,  whose  leaves  are  inscribed,  in  golden  letters,  with  a 
message  of  encouragement. 

James  I.  may  be  reckoned  among  the  English  poets.  He 
mentions  Chaucer,  Gower,  and  Lydgate  as  his  masters.  His 
education  was  English,  and  so  was  the  dialect  of  his  poem, 
although  the  unique  MS.  of  it  is  in  the  Scotch  spelling.  The 
King's  Quhair  is  somewhat  overladen  with  ornament  and 
with  the  fashionable  allegorical  devices,  but  it  is,  upon  the 
whole,  a  rich  and  tender  love  song,  the  best  specimen  of 
court  poetry  between  the  time  of  Chaucer  and  the  time  of 
Spenser.  The  lady  who  walked  in  the  garden  on  that  May 
morning  was  Jane  Beaufort,  niece  to  Henry  IV.  She  was 
married  to  her  poet  after  his  release  from  captivity  and  be- 
came queen  of  Scotland  in  1424.  Twelve  years  later  James 
was  murdered  by  Sir  Robert  Graham  and  his  Highlanders, 
and  his  wife,  who  strove  to  defend  him,  was  wounded  by 
the  assassins.  The  story  of  the  murder  has  been  told  of  late 
by  D,  G.  Rossetti,  in  his  ballad.  The  King's  Tragedy.  The 
whole  life  of  this  princely  singer  was,  like  his  poem,  in  the 
very  spirit  of  romance. 

The  effect  of  all  this  imitation  of  Chaucer  was  to  fix  a 
standard  of  literary  style,  and  to  confirm  the  authority  of  the 
East-Midland  English  in  which  he  had  written.  Though 
the  poets  of  the  15th  century  were  not  overburdened  with 
genius,  they  had,  at  least,  a  definite  model  to  follow.  As  in 
the  14th  century,  metrical  romances  continued  to  be  trans- 
lated from  the  French,  homilies  and  saints'  legends  and 
rhyming  chronicles  were  still  manufactured.  But  the  poems 
of  Occleve  and  Lydgate  and  James  I.  had  helped  to  polish 
and  refine  the  tongue  and  to  prolong  the  Chaucerian  tradi- 
tion. The  literary  English  never  again  slipped  back  into 
the  chaos  of  dialects  which  had  prevailed  before  Chaucer. 


34  '     From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

In  the  history  of  every  literature  the  development  of 
prose  is  later  than  that  of  verse.  The  latter  being,  by  its 
very  form,  artificial,  is  cultivated  as  a  fine  art,  and  its  records 
preserved  in  an  early  stage  of  society,  when  prose  is  simply 
the  talk  of  men,  and  not  thought  worthy  of  being  written  and 
kept.  English  prose  labored  under  the  added  disadvantage 
of  competing  with  Latin,  which  was  the  cosmopolitan  tongue 
and  the  medium  of  communication  between  scholars  of  all 
countries.  Latin  was  the  language  of  the  Church,  and  in  the 
Middle  Ages  churchman  and  scholar  were  convertible  terms. 
The  word  cleric  meant  either  priest  or  scholar.  Two  of  the 
Canterbury  Tales  are  in  prose,  as  is  also  the  Testament  of 
Love,  formerly  ascribed  to  Chaucer,  and  the  style  of  all  these 
is  so  feeble,  wandering,  and  unformed  that  it  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve that  they  were  written  by  the  same  man  who  wrote 
the  Knighfs  Tale  and  the  story  of  Griselda.  TTie  Voiage 
and  Travaile  of  Sir  John  Maundeville — the  forerunner  of 
that  great  library  of  oriental  travel  which  has  enriched  our 
modern  literature — was  written,  according  to  its  author, 
first  in  Latin,  then  in  French,  and,  lastly,  in  the  year  1356, 
translated  into  English  for  the  behoof  of  "  lordes  and  knyghtes 
and  othere  noble  and  worthi  men,  that  conne  *  not  Latyn 
but  litylle."  The  author  professed  to  have  spent  over 
thirty  years  in  Eastern  travel,  to  have  penetrated  as  far  as 
Farther  India  and  the  "  iles  that  ben  abouten  Indi,"  to  have 
been  in  the  service  of  the  Sultan  of  Babylon  in  his  wars 
against  the  Bedouins,  and,  at  another  time,  in  the  employ  of 
the  Great  Khan  of  Tartary.  But  there  is  no  copy  of  the 
Latin  version  of  his  travels  extant;  the  French  seems  to  be 
much  later  than  1356,  and  the  English  MS.  to  belong  to  the 
early  years  of  the  15th  century,  and  to  have  been  made 
by  another  hand.  Recent  investigations  make  it  probable 
that  Maundeville  borrowed  his  descriptions  of  the  remoter 
East  from  many  sources,  and  particularly  from  the  narrative 

•  Know. 


From  Chaucer  to  Spenseb.  36 

of  Odoric,  a  Minorite  friar  of  Lombardy,  who  wrote  about 
1330.  Some  doubt  is  even  cast  upon  the  existence  of  any 
such  person  as  Maundeville.  Whoever  wrote  the  book  that 
passes  under  his  name,  however,  would  seem  to  have  visited 
the  Holy  Land,  and  the  part  of  the  "  voiage  "  that  describes 
Palestine  and  the  Levant  is  fairly  close  to  the  truth.  The 
rest  of  the  work,  so  far  as  it  is  not  taken  from  the  tales  of 
other  travelers,  is  a  diverting  tissue  of  fables  about  gryf ouns 
that  fly  away  with  yokes  of  oxen,  tribes  of  one-legged  Ethi- 
opians who  shelter  themselves  from  the  sun  by  using  their 
monstrous  feet  as  umbrellas,  etc. 

During  the  15th  century  English  prose  was  gradually  being 
brought  into  a  shape  fitting  it  for  more  serious  uses.  In  the 
controversy  between  the  Church  and  the  Lollards  Latin  was 
still  mainly  employed,  but  Wiclif  had  written  some  of  his 
tracts  in  English,  and,  in  1449,  Reginald  Peacock,  Bishop 
of  St,  Asaph,  contributed,  in  English,  to  the  same  contro- 
versy, The  Repressor  of  Overmuch  Blaming  of  the  Clergy. 
Sir  John  Fortescue,  who  was  chief-justice  of  the  King's  Bench 
from  1442-1460,  wrote  during  the  reign  of  Edward  IV,  a 
book  on  the  Difference  between  Absolute  and  Limited  Mon^ 
archy,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  treatise  on  political 
philosophy  and  constitutional  law  in  the  language.  But 
these  works  hardly  belong  to  pure  literature,  and  are  re- 
markable only  as  early,  though  not  very  good,  examples  of 
English  prose  in  a  barren  time.  The  15th  century  was 
an  era  of  decay  and  change.  The  Middle  Age  was  dying, 
Church  and  State  were  slowly  disintegrating  under  the  new 
intellectual  influences  that  were  working  secretly  under 
ground.  In  England  the  civil  wars  of  the  Red  and  White 
Roses  were  breaking  up  the  old  feudal  society  by  decimating 
and  impoverishing  the  bai'onage,  thus  preparing  the  way  for 
the  centralized  monarchy  of  the  Tudors.  Toward  the  close 
of  that  century,  and  early  in  the  next,  happened  the  four 
great  events,  or  series  of  events,  which  freed  and  widened 


36  Feom  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

men's  minds,  and,  in  a  succession  of  shocks,  overthrew  the 
mediaeval  system  of  life  and  thought.  These  were  the  in- 
vention of  printing,  the  Renaissance,  or  revival  of  classical 
learning,  the  discovery  of  America,  and  the  Protestant 
Reformation. 

William  Caxton,  the  first  English  printer,  learned  the  art 
in  Cologne.  In  1476  he  set  up  his  press  and  sign,  a  red  pole, 
in  the  Almonry  at  Westminster.  Just  before  the  introduc- 
tion of  printing  the  demand  for  MS.  copies  had  grown  very 
active,  stimulated,  perhaps,  by  the  coming  into  general  use 
of  linen  paper  instead  of  the  more  costly  parchment.  The 
scriptoria  of  the  monasteries  were  the  places  where  the 
transcribing  and  illuminating  of  MSS.  went  on,  professional 
copyists  resorting  to  Westminster  Abbey,  for  example,  to 
make  their  copies  of  books  belonging  to  the  monastic  library. 
Caxton's  choice  of  a  spot  was,  therefore,  significant.  His 
new  art  for  multiplying  copies  began  to  supersede  the  old 
method  of  transcription  at  the  very  head-quarters  of  the  MS. 
makers.  The  first  book  that  bears  his  Westminster  imprint 
was  the  Dictes  and  Sayings  of  the  Philosophers^  translated 
from  the  French  by  Anthony  Woodville,  Lord  Rivers,  a 
brother-in-law  of  Edward  IV.  The  list  of  books  printed  by 
Caxton  is  interesting,  as  showing  the  taste  of  the  time,  since 
he  naturally  selected  what  was  most  in  demand.  The  list 
shows  that  manuals  of  devotion  and  chivalry  were  still  in 
chief  request,  books  like  the  Order  of  Chivalry^  Faits  of 
Arms,  and  the  Golden  Legend,  which  last  Caxton  translated 
himself,  as  well  as  Reynard  the  Fox,  and  a  French  version 
of  the  uEneid.  He  also  printed,  with  continuations  of  his 
own,  revisions  of  several  early  chronicles,  and  editions  of 
Chaucer,  Gower,  and  Lydgate.  A  translation  of  Cicero  on 
Friendship,  made  directly  from  the  Latin,  by  Thomas  Tiptof t. 
Earl  of  Worcester,  was  printed  by  Caxton,  but  no  edition  of 
a  classical  author  in  the  original.  The  new  learning  of  the 
Renaissance  had  not,  as  yet,  taken  much  hold  in  England. 


Fbom  Chaucer  to  Spenser.  37 

Upon  the  whole  the  productions  of  Caxton's  press  were 
mostly  of  a  kind  that  may  be  described  as  mediaBval,  and  the 
most  important  of  them,  if  we  except  his  edition  of  Chaucer, 
was  that  "  noble  and  joyous  book,"  as  Caxton  called  it,  Le 
Morte  Dartur,  written  by  Sir  Thomas  Malory  in  1469,  and 
printed  by  Caxton  in  1485.  This  was  a  compilation  from 
French  Arthur  romances,  and  was  by  far  the  best  English 
prose  that  had  yet  been  written.  It  may  be  doubted,  indeed, 
whether,  for  purposes  of  simple  story  telling,  the  picturesque 
charm  of  Malory's  style  has  been  improved  upon.  The  epi- 
sode which  lends  its  name  to  the  whole  romance,  the  death  of 
Arthur,  is  most  impressively  told,  and  Tennyson  has  followed 
Malory's  naiTative  closely,  even  to  such  details  of  the  scene 
as  the  little  chapel  by  the  sea,  the  moonlight,  and  the  answer 
which  Sir  Bedwere  made  the  wounded  king,  when  bidden  to 
throw  Excalibur  into  the  water,  " '  What  saw  thou  there  ? ' 
said  the  king.  *  Sir,'  he  said,  '  I  saw  nothing  but  the  waters 
wap  and  the  waves  wan.' " 

I  heard  the  ripple  washing  in  the  reeds 
And  the  wild  water  lapping  on  the  crag. 

And  very  touching  and  beautiful  is  the  oft-quoted  lament  of 
Sir  Ector  over  Launcelot,  in  Malory's  final  chapter  :  "  *Ah, 
Launcelot,'  he  said,  '  thou  were  head  of  all  Christian  knights; 
and  now  I  dare  say,'  said  Sir  Ector,  *thou,  Sir  Launcelot, 
there  thou  liest,  that  thou  were  never  matched  of  earthly 
knight's  hand  ;  and  thou  were  the  courtiest  knight  that  ever 
bare  shield  ;  and  thou  were  the  truest  friend  to  thy  lover 
that  ever  bestrode  horse  ;  and  thou  were  the  truest  lover  of 
a  sinful  man  that  ever  loved  woman;  and  thou  were  the 
kindest  man  that  ever  strake  with  sword ;  and  thou  were  the 
goodliest  person  that  ever  came  among  press  of  knights  ; 
and  thou  were  the  meekest  man  and  the  gentlest  that  ever 
ate  in  hall  among  ladies;  and  thou  were  the  sternest  knight 
to  thy  mortal  foe  that  ever  put  spear  in  the  rest.'  " 


38  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Equally  good,  as  an  example  of  English  prose  narrative, 
was  the  translation  made  by  John  Bourchier,  Lord  Berners, 
of  that  most  brilliant  of  the  Fi'eneh  chroniclers,  Chaucer's 
contemporary.  Sir  John  Froissart.  Lord  Berners  was  the 
English  governor  of  Calais,  and  his  version  of  Froissart  s 
Chronicles  was  made  in  1523-1525,  at  the  request  of  Henry 
VIIL  In  these  two  books  English  chivalry  spoke  its  last 
genuine  word.  In  Sir  Philip  Sidney  the  character  of  the 
knight  was  merged  into  that  of  the  modern  gentleman.  And 
although  tournaments  were  still  held  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
and  Spenser  cast  his  Faerie  Queene  into  the  form  of  a  chivalry 
romance,  these  were  but  a  ceremonial  survival  and  literary 
tradition  from  an  order  of  things  that  had  passed  away. 
How  antagonistic  the  new  classical  culture  was  to  the  van- 
ished ideal  of  the  Middle  Age  may  be  read  in  Toxophilus,  a 
treatise  on  archery  published  in  1545,  by  Roger  Ascham,  a 
Greek  lecturer  in  Cambridge,  and  the  tutor  of  the  Princess 
Elizabeth  and  of  Lady  Jane  Grey :  "  In  our  forefathers' 
time,  when  papistry  as  a  standing  pool  covered  and  over- 
flowed all  England,  few  books  were  read  in  our  tongue  sav- 
ing certain  books  of  chivalry,  as  they  said,  for  pastime  and 
pleasure,  which,  as  some  say,  were  made  in  monasteries  by 
idle  monks  or  wanton  canons :  as  one,  for  example,  Morte 
Arthure,  the  whole  pleasure  of  which  book  standeth  in  two 
special  points,  in  open  manslaughter  and  bold  bawdry.  This 
is  good  stuff  for  wise  men  to  laugh  at  or  honest  men  to  take 
pleasure  at.  Yet  I  know  when  God's  Bible  was  banished 
the  court,  and  Morte  Arthure  received  into  the  prince's 
chamber." 

The  fashionable  school  of  courtly  allegory,  first  introduced 
into  England  by  the  translation  of  the  Romaunt  of  the  Hose, 
reached  its  extremity  in  Stephen  Hawes's  Passetyme  of 
Pleasure,  printed  by  Caxton's  successor,  Wynkyn  de  Worde, 
in  1517.  This  was  a  dreary  and  pedantic  poem,  in  which  it 
is  told  how  Graunde  Amoure,  after  a  long  series  of  advent- 


Fkom  Chaucee  to  Spenser.  39 

ures  and  instructions  among  such  shadowy  personages  as 
Verite,  Observaunce,  Falshed,  and  Good  Operacion,  finally 
won  the  love  of  La  Belle  Pucel.  Hawes  was  the  last  En- 
glish poet  of  note  whose  culture  was  exclusively  mediaeval. 
His  contemporary,  John  Skelton,  mingled  the  old  fashions 
with  the  new  classical  learning.  In  his  Sowge  of  Courte 
(Court  Entertainment  or  Dole),  and  in  others  of  his  earlier 
pieces,  he  used,  like  Hawes,  Chaucer's  seven-lined  stanza. 
But  his  later  poems  were  mostly  written  in  a  verse  of  his 
own  invention,  called  after  him  SkeUonical.  This  was  a  sort 
of  glorified  doggerel,  in  short,  swift,  ragged  lines,  with  oc- 
casional intermixture  of  French  and  Latin. 

Her  beautye  to  augment 
Dame  Nature  hath  her  lent 
A  warte  upon  her  cheke, 
Who  80  lyst  to  seke 
In  her  vysage  a  skar 
That  semyth  from  afar 
Lyke  to  the  radiant  star, 
All  with  favour  fret, 
So  properly  it  is  set 
She  is  the  vyolet, 
The  daysy  delectable, 
The  columbine  commendable, 
The  jelofer  '  amyable ; 
For  this  most  goodly  floure, 
This  blossom  of  fressh  colodr. 
So  Jupiter  me  succour. 
She  flourysheth  new  and  new 
In  beaute  and  vertew ; 
Hoc  claritate  gemina, 
0  gloriosa  femina^  etc. 

Skelton  was  a  rude  railing  rhymer,  a  singular  mixture  of  a 
true  and  original  poet  with  a  buffoon ;  coarse  as  Rabelais, 
whimsical,  obscure,  but  always  vivacious.  He  was  the  rector 
of  Diss,  in  Norfolk,  but  his  profane  and  scurrilous  wit  seems 

■  Gilliflower. 


40  Feom  Chaucee  to  Tennyson. 

rather  out  of  keeping  with  his  clerical  character.  His 
Tunnyng  of  Mlynoure  Rummyng  is  a  study  of  very  low 
life,  reminding  one  slightly  of  Burns's  Jolly  Beggars.  His 
Phyllyp  Sparrowe  is  a  sportive,  pretty,  fantastic  elegy  on 
the  death  of  a  pet  bird  belonging  to  Mistress  Joanna 
Scroupe,  of  Carowe,  and  has  been  compared  to  the  Latin 
poet  Catullus's  elegy  on  Lesbia's  sparrow.  In  Speke,  Parrot^ 
and  Why  Come  ye  not  to  Courte?  he  assailed  the  powerful 
Cardinal  Wolsey  with  the  most  ferocious  satire,  and  was,  in 
consequence,  obliged  to  take  sanctuary  at  Westminster,  where 
he  died  in  1529.  Skelton  was  a  classical  scholar,  and  at  one 
time  tutor  to  Henry  VIII.  The  great  humanist,  Erasmus, 
spoke  of  him  as  the  "one  light  and  ornament  of  British 
letters."  Caxton  asserts  that  he  had  read  Vergil,  Ovid,  and 
Tully,  and  quaintly  adds,  "  I  suppose  he  hath  dronken  of 
Elycon's  well." 

In  refreshing  contrast  with  the  artificial  court  poetry  of  the 
15th  and  first  three  quarters  of  the  16th  century,  was  the 
folk  poetry,  the  popular  ballad  literature  which  was  handed 
down  by  oral  tradition.  The  English  and  Scotch  ballads 
were  narrative  songs,  written  in  a  variety  of  meters,  but 
chiefly  in  what  is  known  as  the  ballad  stanza. 

In  somer,  when  the  shawes '  be  shene, ' 

And  leves  be  large  and  longe, 
Hit  is  full  merry  in  feyre  forest, 

To  here  the  foulys  song. 

To  86  the  dere  draw  to  the  dale, 

And  leve  the  hilles  hee,  ^ 
And  shadow  them  in  the  leves  grene, 

Under  the  grene-wode  tree. 

It  is  not  possible  to  assign  a  definite  date  to  these  ballads. 

They  lived   on   the  lips    of   the   people,  and   were   seldom 

reduced  to  writing   till   many    years  after   they  were   first 

composed  and  sung.     Meanwhile  they  underwent  repeated 

'  Woods.  » Bright.  »  High. 


Feom  Chaucee  to  Spensbe.  41 

changes,  so  that  we  have  numerous  versions  of  the  same 
story.  They  belonged  to  no  particular  author,  but,  like  all 
folk-lore,  were  handled  freely  by  the  unknown  poets, 
minstrels,  and  ballad  reciters,  who  modernized  their  language, 
added  to  them,  or  corrupted  them,  and  passed  them  along. 
Coming  out  of  an  uncertain  past,  based  on  some  dark 
legend  of  heart-break  or  bloodshed,  they  bear  no  poet's 
name,  but  are  ferae  naturae^  and  have  the  flavor  of  wild 
game.  In  the  form  in  which  they  are  preserved,  few  of 
them  are  older  than  the  17th  or  the  latter  part  of  the  16th 
century,  though  many,  in  their  original  shape,  are  doubtless 
much  older.  A  very  few  of  the  Robin  Hood  ballads  go 
back  to  the  15  th  century,  and  to  the  same  period  is  assigned 
the  charming  ballad  of  the  Nut  Brown  Maid  and  the  famous 
border  ballad  of  Chevy  Chase,  which  describes  a  battle 
between  the  retainers  of  the  two  great  houses  of  Douglas 
and  Percy.  It  was  this  song  of  which  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
wrote,  "I  never  heard  the  old  song  of  Percy  and  Douglas 
but  I  found  myself  more  moved  than  by  a  trumpet ;  and  yet 
it  is  sung  but  by  some  blind  crouder,'  with  no  rougher  voice 
than  rude  style."  But  the  style  of  the  ballads  was  not 
always  rude.  In  their  compressed  energy  of  expression,  in 
the  impassioned  way  in  which  they  tell  their  tale  of  grief 
and  horror,  there  reside  often  a  tragic  power  and  art  superior 
to  any  thing  in  English  poetry  between  Chaucer  and  Spenser; 
superior  to  any  thing  in  Chaucer  and  Spenser  themselves,  in 
the  quality  of  intensity.  The  true  home  of  the  ballad  literature 
was  "  the  north  country,"  and  especially  the  Scotch  border, 
where  the  constant  forays  of  moss-troopers  and  the  raids  and 
private  warfare  of  the  lords  of  the  marches  supplied  many 
traditions  of  heroism,  like  those  celebrated  in  the  old  poem 
of  the  Battle  of  Otterhoume,  and  in  the  Hunting  of  the 
Cheviot,  or  Chevy  Chase,  already  mentioned.  Some  of 
these  are  Scotch  and  others  English  ;  the  dialect  of  Lowland 

>  Fiddler. 


42  Feom  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

Scotland  did  not,  in  effect,  differ  much  from  that  of  North- 
umberland and  Yorkshire,  both  descended  alike  from  the 
old  Northumbrian  of  Anglo-Saxon  times.  Other  ballads 
were  shortened,  popular  versions  of  the  chivalry  romances, 
which  were  passing  out  of  fashion  among  educated  read- 
ers in  the  16th  century  and  now  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  ballad  makers.  Others  preserved  the  memory  of  local 
country-side  tales,  family  feuds,  and  tragic  incidents,  partly 
historical  and  partly  legendary,  associated  often  with  par- 
ticular spots.  Such  are,  for  example.  The  Dowie  Dens  of 
Yarrow,  Fair  Helen  of  Kirkconnell,  The  Forsaken  Bride, 
and  The  Twa  Corhies.  Others,  again,  have  a  coloring  of 
popular  superstition,  like  the  beautiful  ballad  concerning 
Thomas  of  Ersyldoune,  who  goes  in  at  Eildon  Hill  with  an 
elf  queen  and  spends  seven  years  in  fairy  land. 

But  the  most  popular  of  all  the  ballads  were  those  which 
cluster  about  the  name  of  that  good  outlaw,  Robin  Hood, 
who,  with  his  merry  men,  hunted  the  forest  of  Sher- 
wood, where  he  killed  the  king's  deer  and  waylaid  rich 
travelers,  but  was  kind  to  poor  knights  and  honest  workmen. 
Robin  Hood  is  the  true  ballad  hero,  the  darling  of  the 
common  people  as  Arthur  was  of  the  nobles.  The  names  of 
his  confessor.  Friar  Tuck  ;  his  mistress.  Maid  Marian ;  his 
companions.  Little  John,  Scathelock,  and  Much,  the  miller's 
son,  were  as  familiar  as  household  words.  Langland  in  the 
14th  century  mentions  "rimes  of  Robin  Hood,"  and  efforts 
have  been  made  to  identify  him  with  some  actual  personage, 
as  with  one  of  the  dispossessed  barons  who  had  been  adherents 
of  Simon  de  Montfort  in  his  war  against  Henry  HI.  But 
there  seems  to  be  nothing  historical  about  Robin  Hood.  He 
was  a  creation  of  the  popular  fancy.  The  game  laws  under 
the  Norman  kings  were  very  oppressive,  and  there  were, 
doubtless,  dim  memories  still  cherished  among  the  Saxon 
masses  of  Hereward  and  Edric  the  Wild,  who  had  defied  the 
power  of  the  Conqueror,  as  well  as  of  later  freebooters,  who 


Fbom  Chaucer  to  Spenseb.  43 

had  taken  to  the  woods  and  lived  by  plunder.  Robin  Hood 
was  a  thoroughly  national  character.  He  had  the  English 
love  of  fair  play,  the  English  readiness  to  shake  hands  and 
make  up,  and  keep  no  malice  when  worsted  in  a  square 
fight.  He  beat  and  plundered  the  fat  bishops  and  abbots, 
who  had  more  than  their  share  of  wealth,  but  he  was 
generous  and  hospitable  to  the  distressed,  and  lived  a  free 
and  careless  life  in  the  good  green  wood.  He  was  a  mighty 
archer  with  those  national  weapons,  the  long-bow  and  the 
cloth-yard  shaft.  He  tricked  and  baffled  legal  authority  in 
the  person  of  the  proud  sheriff  of  Nottingham,  thereby' 
appealing  to  that  secret  sympathy  with  lawless  adventure 
which  marked  the  free-born,  vigorous  yeomanry  of  England. 
And,  finally,  the  scenery  of  the  forest  gives  a  poetic  back- 
ground and  a  never-failing  charm  to  the  exploits  of  "  the  old 
Robin  Hood  of  England"  and  his  merry  men. 

The  ballads  came,  in  time,  to  have  certain  tricks  of  style, 
such  as  are  apt  to  characterize  a  body  of  anonymous  folk- 
poetry.  Such  is  their  use  of  conventional  epithets  ;  "  the 
red,  red  gold,"  "the  good  green  wood,"  "the  gray  goose 
wing."  Such  are  certain  recurring  terms  of  phrase  like, 
But  out  and  spak  their  stepmother. 

Such  is,  finally,  a  kind  of  sing-song  repetition,  which  doubt- 
less helped  the  ballad   singer  to  memorize  his  stock,  as,  for 

example, 

She  had'na  pu'd  a  double  rose, 
A  rose  but  only  twae. 
Or  again, 

And  mony  ane  sings  o'  grass,  o'  grass, 

And  mony  ane  sings  o'  corn ; 
An  mony  ane  sings  o'  Robin  Hood, 
Kens  little  whare  he  was  born. 

It  was  na  in  the  ha',  the  ha', 

Nor  in  the  painted  bower; 
But  it  was  in  the  glide  green  wood, 

Amang  the  lily  flower. 


44         Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Copies  of  some  of  these  old  ballads  were  hawked  about  in 
the  16th  century,  printed  in  black  letter,  "broadsides,"  or 
single  sheets.  Wynkyn  de  Worde  printed  in  1489  A  Lytell 
Geste  of  Mohin  Hood,  which  is  a  sort  of  digest  of  earlier 
ballads  on  the  subject.  In  the  17th  century  a  few  of  the 
English  popular  ballads  were  collected  in  miscellanies 
called  Garlands.  Early  in  the  18th  century  the  Scotch  poet, 
Allan  Ramsay,  published  a  number  of  Scotch  ballads  in  the 
Evergreen  and  Tea -Table  Miscellany.  But  no  large  and 
important  collection  was  put  forth  until  Percy's  Reliques 
(1765),  a  book  which  had  a  powerful  influence  upon  Words- 
worth and  Walter  Scott.  In  Scotland  some  excellent  bal- 
lads in  the  ancient  manner  were  written  in  the  18th  century, 
such  as  Jane  Elliott's  Lament  for  Flodden,  and  the  fine 
ballad  of  Sir  Patrick  Spence.  Walter  Scott's  Proud  Maisie 
is  in  the  Wood,  is  a  perfect  reproduction  of  the  pregnant, 
indirect  method  of  the  old  ballad  makers. 

In  1453  Constantinople  was  taken  by  the  Turks,  and  many 
Greek  scholars,  with  their  manuscripts,  fled  into  Italy,  where 
they  began  teaching  their  language  and  literature,  and 
especially  the  philosophy  of  Plato.  There  had  been  little  or 
no  knowledge  of  Greek  in  western  Europe  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  only  a  very  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  Latin 
classics.  Ovid  and  Statins  were  widely  read,  and  so  was  the 
late  Latin  poet,  Boethius,  whose  J)e  Consolatione  Philosophim 
had  been  translated  into  English  by  King  Alfred  and  by 
Chaucer.  Little  was  known  of  Vergil  at  first  hand,  and  he 
was  popularly  supposed  to  have  been  a  mighty  wizard,  who 
made  sundry  works  of  enchantment  at  Rome,  such  as  a 
magic  mirror  and  statue.  Caxton's  so-called  translation 
of  the  ^neid  was  in  reality  nothing  but  a  version  of  a 
French  romance  based  on  Vergil's  epic.  Of  the  Roman 
historians,  orators,  and  moralists,  such  as  Livy,  Tacitus, 
Caesar,  Cicero,  and  Seneca,  there  was  almost  entire  igno- 
rance, as  also  of  poets  like  Hoi'ace,  Lucretius,  Juvenal,  and 


Fbom  Chaucer  to  Spbnseb.  45 

Catullus.  The  gradual  rediscovery  of  the  remains  of  an- 
cient art  and  literature  which  took  place  in  the  15th  century, 
and  lai'gely  in  Italy,  worked  an  immense  revolution  in  the 
mind  of  Europe.  Manuscripts  were  brought  out  of  their 
hiding  places,  edited  by  scholars,  and  spread  abroad  by 
means  of  the  printing-press.  Statues  were  dug  up  and 
placed  in  museums,  and  men  became  acquainted  with  a  civ- 
ilization far  more  mature  than  that  of  the  Middle  Age,  and 
with  models  of  perfect  workmanship  in  letters  and  the  fine 
arts. 

In  the  latter  yeai'S  of  the  loth  century  a  number  of  En- 
glishmen learned  Greek  in  Italy  and  brought  it  back  with 
them  to  England.  William  Grocyn  and  Thomas  Linacre,  who 
had  studied  at  Florence  under  the  refugee,  Demetrius  Chal- 
condylas,  began  teaching  Greek  at  Oxford,  the  former  as  early 
as  1491.  A  little  later  John  Colet,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  and 
the  founder  of  St.  Paul's  School,  and  his  friend,  William 
Lily,  the  grammarian,  and  first  master  of  St.  Paul's  (1500), 
also  studied  Greek  abroad;  Colet  in  Italy,  and  Lily  at 
Rhodes  and  in  the  city  of  Rome.  Thomas  More,  afterward 
the  famous  chancellor  of  Henry  VIII.,  was  among  the  pupils 
of  Grocyn  and  Linacre  at  Oxford.  Thither  also,  in  1497, 
came,  in  search'  of  the  new  knowledge,  the  Dutchman, 
Erasmus,  who  became  the  foremost  scholar  of  his  time.  From 
Oxford  the  study  spread  to  the  sister  university,  where  the 
first  English  Grecian  of  his  day,  Sir  John  Cheke,  who 
"  taught  Cambridge  and  King  Edward  Greek,"  became  the 
incumbent  of  the  new  professorship  founded  about  1540, 
Among  his  pupils  was  Roger  Ascham,  already  mentioned,  in 
whose  time  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  was  the  chief 
seat  of  the  new  learning,  of  which  Thomas  Nashe  testifies 
that  it  "was  an  universitie  within  itself;  having  more  candles 
light  in  it,  every  winter  morning  before  four  of  the  clock, 
than  the  four  of  clock  bell  gave  strokes."  Greek  was  not 
introduced  at  the  universities  without  violent  opposition  from 


46  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

the  conservative  element,  who  were  nicknamed  Trojans. 
The  opposition  came  in  part  from  the  priests,  who  feared 
that  that  new  study  would  sow  seeds  of  heresy.  Yet  many 
of  the  most  devout  churchmen  were  friends  of  a  more  liberal 
culture,  among  them  Thomas  More,  whose  Catholicism  was 
undoubted  and  who  went  to  the  block  for  his  religion. 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  whom  More  succeeded  as  chancellor,  was' 
also  a  munificent  patron  of  learning,  and  founded  Christ 
Church  College  at  Oxford.  Popular  education  at  once  felt 
the  impulse  of  the  new  studies,  and  over  twenty  endowed 
grammar  schools  were  established  in  England  in  the  first 
twenty  years  of  the  16th  century.  Greek  became  a  passion 
even  with  English  ladies.  Ascham  in  his  Schoolmaster,  a 
treatise  on  education,  published  in  1570,  says  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  "  readeth  here  now  at  Windsor  more  Greek  every 
day,  than  some  prebendarie  of  this  Church  doth  read  Latin 
in  a  whole  week."  And  in  the  same  book  he  tells  how,  call- 
ing once  on  Lady  Jane  Grey,  at  Brodegate,  in  Leicester- 
shire, he  "  found  her  in  her  chamber  reading  Phmdon 
Platonis  in  Greek,  and  that  with  as  much  delite  as  some 
gentlemen  would  read  a  merry  tale  in  jBocase,"  and  when  he 
asked  her  why  she  had  not  gone  hunting  with  the  rest,  she 
answered,  "  I  wisse,'  all  their  sport  in  the  park  is  but  a 
shadow  to  that  pleasure  that  I  find  in  Plato."  Aschara's 
Schoolmaster,  as  well  as  his  earlier  book,  Toxophilus,  a 
Platonic  dialogue  on  archery,  bristles  with  quotations  from 
the  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  and  with  that  perpetual  refer- 
ence to  the  authority  of  antiquity  on  every  topic  that  he 
touches,  which  remained  the  fashion  in  all  serious  prose 
down  to  the  time  of  Dry  den. 

One  speedy  result  of  the  new  learning  was  fresh  transla- 
tions of  the  Scriptures   into    English   out    of   the  original 
tongues.     In  1525  William  Tyndal  printed  at  Cologne  and 
Worms  his  version  of  the  New  Testament  from  the  Greek. 
'  Surely ;  a  corruption  of  tlie  Anglo-Saxon  gewis. 


From  Chaucer  to  Spexsee.  47 

Ten  years  later  Miles  Coverdale  made,  at  Zurich,  a  transla- 
tion of  the  whole  Bible  from  the  German  and  Latin.  These 
were  the  basis  of  numerous  later  translations,  and  the  strong 
beautiful  English  of  Tyndal's  Testament  is  preserved  for 
the  most  part  in  our  Authorized  Version  (1611).  At  first  it 
was  not  safe  to  make  or  distribute  these  early  translations  in 
England.  Numbers  of  copies  were  brought  into  the  coun- 
try, however,  and  did  much  to  promote  the  cause  of  the 
Reformation.  After  Henry  VIII.  had  broken  with  the 
pope  the  new  English  Bible  circulated  freely  among  the 
people.  Tyndal  and  Sir  Thomas  More  carried  on  a  vigor- 
ous controversy  in  English  upon  some  of  the  questions  at 
issue  between  the  Church  and  the  Protestants.  Other  im- 
portant contributions  to  the  literature  of  the  Reformation 
were  the  homely  sermons  preached  at  Westminster  and  at 
Paul's  Cross  by  Bishop  Hugh  Latimer,  who  was  burned  at 
Oxford  in  the  reign  of  Bloody  Mary.  The  English  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  was  compiled  in  1549-1552.  More  was,  per- 
haps, the  best  representative  of  a  group  of  scholars  who 
wished  to  enlighten  and  reform  the  Church  from  the  inside, 
but  who  refused  to  follow  Henry  VIII.  in  his  breach  with 
Rome.  Dean  Colet  and  John  Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester, 
belonged  to  the  same  company,  and  Fisher  was  beheaded  in 
the  same  year  (1535)  with  More,  and  for  the  same  offense, 
namely,  refusing  to  take  the  oath  to  maintain  the  act  con- 
firming the  king's  divorce  from  Catharine  of  Arragon  and 
his  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn.  More's  philosophy  is  best 
reflected  in  his  Utopia,  the  description  of  an  ideal  common- 
wealth, modeled  on  Plato's  Republic,  and  printed  in  1516. 
The  name  signifies  "  no  place "  (ov  rb-noq),  and  has  fur- 
nished an  adjective  to  the  language.  The  Utopia  was  in 
Latin,  but  More's  History  of  Echcard  V.  and  Richard  III. 
written  1513,  though  not  printed  till  1557,  was  in  English. 
It  is  the  first  example  in  the  tongue  of  a  history  as  distin- 
guished from  a  chronicle;  that  is,  it  is  a  reasoned  and  artistic 


48  From  Chaucer  to  Tennttson. 

presentation  of  an  historic  period,  and  not  a  mere  chrono- 
logical narrative  of  events. 

The  first  three  quarters  of  the  16th  century  produced  no 
great  original  work  of  literature  in  England.  It  was  a  sea- 
son of  preparation,  of  education.  The  storms  of  the  Refor- 
mation interrupted  and  delayed  the  literary  renascence 
through  the  reigns  of  Henry  YIII.,  Edward  VI.,  and  Queen 
Mary.  When  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne,  in  1558,  a  more 
settled  order  of  things  began,  and  a  period  of  great  national 
prosperity  and  glory.  Meanwhile  the  English  mind  had 
been  slowly  assimilating  the  new  classical  culture,  which 
was  extended  to  all  classes  of  readers  by  the  numerous  trans- 
lations of  Greek  and  Latin  authors.  A  fresh  poetic  impulse 
came  from  Italy.  In  1557  appeared  TbWers  Miscellany, 
containing  songs  and  sonnets  by  a  "  new  company  of  courtly 
makers."  Most  of  the  pieces  in  the  volume  had  been  written 
years  before  by  gentlemen  of  Henry  VIII. 's  court,  and  circu- 
lated in  manuscript.  The  two  chief  contributors  were  Sir 
Thomas  Wiat,  at  one  time  English  embassador  to  Spain,  and 
that  brilliant  noble,  Henry  Howard,  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  who 
was  beheaded  in  1547  for  quartering  the  king's  arms  with 
his  own.  Both  of  them  were  dead  long  before  their  work 
was  printed.  The  verses  in  TotteVs  Miscellany  show  very 
clearly  the  influence  of  Italian  poetry.  We  have  seen  that 
Chaucer  took  subjects  and  something  more  from  Boccaccio 
and  Petrarch.  But  the  sonnet,  which  Petrarch  had  brought 
to  perfection,  was  first  introduced  into  England  by  Wiat. 
There  was  a  great  revival  of  sonneteering  in  Italy  in 
the  16th  century,  and  a  number  of  Wiat's  poems  were 
adaptations  of  the  sonnets  and  canzoni  of  Petrarch  and 
later  poets.  Others  were  imitations  of  Horace's  satires  and 
epistles.  Surrey  introduced  the  Italian  blank  verse  into 
English  in  his  translation  of  two  books  of  the  ^neid.  The 
love  poetry  of  Totters  Miscellany  is  polished  and  artificial, 
like  the  models  which  it  followed.     Dante's  Beatrice  was  a 


From  Chaucer  to  Spenser.  49 

child,  and  so  was  Petrarch's  Laura.  Following  their  exam- 
ple, Surrey  addressed  his  love  complaints,  by  way  of  com- 
pliment, to  a  little  girl  of  the  noble  Irish  family  of  Geral- 
dine.  The  Amourists,  or  love  sonneteers,  dwelt  on  the  meta- 
physics of  the  passion  with  a  tedious  minuteness,  and  the 
conventional  nature  of  their  sighs  and  complaints  may  often 
be  guessed  by  an  experienced  reader  from  the  titles  of  their 
poems:  "Description  of  the  restless  state  of  a  lover,  with 
suit  to  his  lady  to  rue  on  his  dying  heart;  "  Hell  tormenteth 
not  the  damned  ghosts  so  sore  as  unkindness  the  lover;" 
"  The  lover  prayeth  not  to  be  disdained,  refused,  mistrusted  nor 
forsaken,"  etc.  The  most  genuine  utterance  of  Surrey  was 
his  poem  written  while  imprisoned  in  Windsor — a  cage 
where  so  many  a  song-bird  has  grown  vocal.  And  Wiat's 
little  piece  of  eight  lines,  *'  Of  his  Return  from  Spain,"  is 
worth  reams  of  his  amatory  affectations.  Nevertheless  the 
writers  in  TotteVs  Miscellany  were  real  reformers  of  English 
poetry.  They  introduced  new  models  of  style  and  new  met- 
rical forms,  and  they  broke  away  from  the  mediaeval  tradi- 
tions which  had  hitherto  obtained.  The  language  had  un- 
dergone some  changes  since  Chaucer's  time,  which  made  his 
scansion  obsolete.  The  accent  of  many  words  of  French 
origin,  like  natiXre,  courdge^  virtHe,  mature,  had  shifted  to 
the  first  syllable,  and  the  e  of  the  final  syllables  es,  en,  ed, 
and  S,  had  largely  disappeared.  But  the  language  of  poetry 
tends  to  keep  up  archaisms  of  this  kind,  and  in  Stephen 
Hawes,  who  wrote  a  century  after  Chaucer,  we  still  find 
such  lines  as  these: 

But  he  my  strokes  might  right  well  endure, 
He  was  so  great  and  huge  of  puissance.' 

Hawes's  practice  is  variable  in  this  respect,  and  so  is  his 
contemporary,  Skelton's.  But  in  Wiat  and  Surrey,  who 
wrote  only  a   few    years  later,  the  reader  first  feels   sure 

'  Trisyllable — like  creature  neighebour,  etc.,  in  Chaucer. 
3 


50  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Ten^nyson. 

that  he  is  reading  vei'se  pronounced  quite  in  the  modern 
fashion. 

But  Chaucer's  example  still  continued  potent.  Spenser 
revived  many  of  his  obsolete  words,  both  in  his  pastorals  and  in 
his  Faerie  Queene,  thereby  imparting  an  antique  remoteness 
to  his  diction,  but  incurring  Ben  Jonson's  censure,  that  he 
"  writ  no  language."  A  poem  that  stands  midway  between 
Spenser  and  the  late  mediaeval  work  of  Chaucer's  school — 
such  as  Hawes's  Passetyme  of  Pleasure  — was  the  induction 
contributed  by  Thomas  Sackville,  Lord  Buckhurst,  in  1563 
to  a  collection  of  narrative  poems  called  the  Mirrour  for 
Magistrates.  The  whole  series  was  the  work  of  many 
hands,  modeled  upon  Lydgate's  Falls  of  Princes  (taken  from 
Boccaccio),  and  was  designed  as  a  warning  to  great  men  of 
the  fickleness  of  fortune.  The  Indtbction  is  the  only  note- 
worthy part  of  it.  It  was  an  allegory,  written  in  Chaucer's 
seven-lined  stanza,  and  described,  with  a  somber  imaginative 
power,  the  figure  of  Sorrow,  her  abode  in  the  "griesly  lake" 
of  Avernus,  and  her  attendants.  Remorse,  Dread,  Old  Age, 
etc.  Sackville  was  the  author  of  the  first  regular  English 
tragedy  Gorhoduc;  and  it  was  at  his  request  that  Ascham 
wrote  the  Schoolmaster. 

Italian  poetry  also  fed  the  genius  of  Edmund  Spenser 
(1552-1599).  While  a  student  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge, 
he  had  translated  some  of  the  Visions  of  Petrarch,  and  the 
Visions  of  Pellay,  a  French  poet,  but  it  was  only  in  1579 
that  the  publication  of  his  JShepheard^s  Calendar  announced 
the  coming  of  a  great  original  poet,  the  first  since  Chaucer. 
The  Shepheard^s  Calendar  was  a  pastoral  in  twelve  eclogues 
— one  for  each  month  in  the  year.  There  had  been  a  revival 
of  pastoral  poetry  in  Italy  and  France,  but,  with  one  or  two 
insignificant  exceptions,  Spenser's  were  the  first  bucolics 
in  English.  Two  of  his  eclogues  were  paraphrases  from 
Clement  Marot,  a  French  Protestant  poet,  whose  psalms 
were  greatly  in  fashion  at  the  court  of  Francis  I.     The  pas- 


Feom  Chaucer  to  Spenser.  51 

toral  machinery  had  been  used  by  Vergil  and  by  his  modern 
imitators,  not  merely  to  portray  the  loves  of  Strephon  and 
Chloe,  or  the  idyllic  charms  of  rustic  life;  but  also  as  a 
vehicle  of  compliment,  elegy,  satire,  and  personal  allusion  of 
many  kinds.  Spenser,  accordingly,  alluded  to  his  friends, 
Sidney  and  Harvey,  as  the  shepherds  Astrophel  and  Hob- 
binol;  paid  court  to  Queen  Elizabeth  as  Cynthia;  and  intro- 
duced, in  the  form  of  anagrams,  names  of  the  High-Church 
Bishop  of  London,  Aylmer,  and  the  Low-Church  Archbishop 
Grindal.  The  conventional  pastoral  is  a  somewhat  delicate 
exotic  in  English  poetry,  and  represents  a  very  unreal  Ar- 
cadia. Before  the  end  of  the  17th  century  the  squeak  of  the 
oaten  pipe  had  become  a  burden,  and  the  only  poem  of  the 
kind  which  it  is  easy  to  read  withoiit  some  impatience  is 
Milton's  wonderful  Lycidas.  The  Shepheard''s  Calendar y 
however,  though  it  belonged  to  an  artificial  order  of  litera- 
ture, had  the  unmistakable  stamp  of  genius  in  its  style. 
There  was  a  broad,  easy  mastery  of  the  resources  of  lan- 
guage, a  grace,  fluency,  and  music  which  were  new  to  English 
poetry.  It  was  written  while  Spenser  was  in  service  with 
the  Earl  of  Leicester,  and  enjoying  the  friendship  of  his 
nephew,  the  all-accomplished  Sidney  and  it  was,  perhaps, 
composed  at  the  latter's  country  seat  of  Penshurst.  In  the 
following  year  Spenser  went  to  Ireland  as  private  secretary  to 
Arthur,  Lord  Grey  of  Wilton,  who  had  just  been  appointed 
Lord  Deputy  of  that  kingdom.  After  filling  several  clerk- 
ships in  the  Irish  government,  Spenser  received  a  grant  of 
the  castle  and  estate  of  Kilcolman,  a  part  of  the  forfeited 
lands  of  the  rebel  Earl  of  Desmond.  Here,  among  land- 
scapes richly  wooded,  like  the  scenery  of  his  own  fairy  land, 
"  under  the  cooly  shades  of  the  green  alders  by  the  Mulla's 
shore,"  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  found  him,  in  1589,  busy  upon 
his  Faerie  Queene.  In  his  poem,  Colin  Clout'' s  Come  Home 
Again,  Spenser  tells,  in  pastoral  language,  how  "  the  shep- 
herd of  the  ocean  "  persuaded  him  to  go  to  London,  where 


62  Fkom  Chaucee  to  Tenxyson. 

he  presented  him  to  the  queen,  under  whose  patronage  the 
first  three  books  of  his  great  poem  were  printed,  in  1590.  A 
volume  of  minor  poems,  entitled  Complaints^  followed  in 
1591,  and  the  three  remaining  books  of  the  Faerie  Queene  in 
1596.  In  1595-1596  he  published  also  his  Z>ajoA«aec^,iVo<Aa- 
lamion,  and  the  four  hymns  on  Love  and  Beauty,  and  on 
Heavenly  Love  and  Heavenly  Beauty.  In  1598,  in  Tyrone's 
rebellion,  Kilcolman  Castle  was  sacked  and  burned,  and 
Spenser,  with  his  family,  fled  to  London,  where  he  died  in 
January,  1599. 

The  Faerie  Queene  reflects,  perhaps,  more  fully  than  any 
other  English  work,  the  many-sided  literary  influences  of 
the  Renascence.  It  was  the  blossom  of  a  richly  composite 
culture.  Its  immediate  models  were  Ariosto's  Orlando  Furi- 
oso,  the  first  forty  cantos  of  which  were  published  in  1515, 
and  Tasso's  Gerusalemme  Liberato.,  printed  in  1681.  Both 
of  these  were,  in  subject,  romances  of  chivalry,  the  first 
based  upon  the  old  Charlemagne  epos — Orlando  being  iden- 
tical with  the  hero  of  the  French  Chanson  de  Roland:  the 
second  upon  the  history  of  the  fii'st  ci'usade,  and  the  recov- 
ery of  the  Holy  City  from  the  Saracen.  But  in  both  of 
them  there  was  a  splendor  of  diction  and  a  wealth  of  color- 
ing quite  unknown  to  the  rude  mediaeval  romances.  Ariosto 
and  Tasso  wrote  with  the  great  epics  of  Homer  and  Vergil 
constantly  in  mind,  and  all  about  them  was  the  brilliant 
light  of  Italian  art,  in  its  early  freshness  and  power.  The 
Faerie  Queene,  too,  was  a  tale  of  knight-errantry.  Its  hero 
was  King  Arthur,  and  its  pages  swarm  with  the  familiar  ad- 
ventures and  figures  of  Gothic  romance:  distressed  ladies 
and  their  champions,  combats  with  dragons  and  giants, 
enchanted  castles,  magic  rings,  charmed  wells,  forest  hermit- 
ages, etc.  But  side  by  side  with  these  appear  the  fictions  of 
Greek  mythology  and  the  personified  abstractions  of  fash- 
ionable allegory.  Knights,  squires,  wizards,  hamadryads, 
satyrs,  and  river  gods.  Idleness,  Gluttony,  and  Superstition 


Fbom  Chauceb  to  Spenseb.  68 

jostle  each  other  in  Spensei-'s  fairy  land.  Descents  to  the 
infernal  shades,  in  the  manner  of  Homer  and  Vergil,  alter- 
nate with  descriptions  of  the  Palace  of  Pride  in  the  man- 
ner of  the  Momaunt  of  the  Hose.  But  Spenser's  imagination 
was  a  powerful  spirit,  and  held  all  these  diverse  elements  in 
solution.  He  removed  them  to  an  ideal  sphere  "  apart  from 
place,  withholding  time,"  where  they  seem  all  alike  equally 
real,  the  dateless  conceptions  of  the  poet's  dreanL 

The  poem  was  to  have  been  "  a  continued  allegory  or  dark 
conceit,"  in  twelve  books,  the  hero  of  each  book  representing 
one  of  the  twelve  moral  virtues.  Only  six  books  and  the 
fragment  of  a  seventh  were  written.  By  way  of  compli- 
menting his  patrons  and  securing  contemporary  interest, 
Spenser  undertook  to  make  his  allegory  a  double  one,  per- 
sonal and  historical,  as  well  as  moral  or  abstract.  Thus 
Gloriana,  the  Queen  of  Faery,  stands  not  only  for  Glory  but  for 
Elizabeth,  to  whom  the  poem  was  dedicated.  Prince  Arthur 
is  Leicester,  as  well  as  Magnificence.  Duessa  is  Falsehood, 
but  also  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  Grantorto  is  Philip  II.  of 
Spain.  Sir  Artegal  is  Justice,  but  likewise  he  is  Arthur  Grey 
de  Wilton.  Other  characters  shadow  forth  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Henry  IV.  of  France,  etc.;  and 
such  public  events  as  the  revolt  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands, 
the  Irish  rebellion,  the  execution  of  Mary  Stuart,  and  the 
rising  of  the  northern  Catholic  houses  against  Elizabeth  are 
told  in  parable.  In  this  way  the  poem  reflects  the  spiritual 
struggle  of  the  time,  the  warfare  of  young  England  against 
popery  and  Spain. 

The  allegory  is  not  always  easy  to  follow.  It  is  kept  up 
most  carefully  in  the  first  two  books,  but  it  sat  rather  lightly 
on  Spenser's  conscience,  and  is  not  of  the  essence  of  the 
poem.  It  is  an  ornament  put  on  from  the  outside  and  de- 
tachable at  pleasure.  The  "  Spenserian  stanza,"  in  which  the 
Faerie  Queene  was  written,  was  adapted  from  the  ottava 
rima  of  Ariosto.     Spenser  changed  somewhat  the  order  of 


54  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tenntson. 

the  rimes  hi  the  first  eight  lines  and  added  a  ninth  line  of 
twelve  syllables,  thus  affording  more  space  to  the  copious 
luxuriance  of  his  style  and  the  long-drawn  sweetness  of  his 
verse.  It  was  his  instinct  to  dilate  and  elaborate  every 
image  to  the  utmost,  and  his  similies,  especially — each  of 
which  usually  fills  a  whole  stanza — have  the  pictorial  ampli- 
tude of  Homei''s.  Spenser  was,  in  fact,  a  great  painter.  His 
poetry  is  almost  purely  sensuous.  The  personages  in  the 
Faerie  Queene  are  not  characters,  but  richly  colored  figures, 
moving  to  the  accompaniment  of  delicious  music,  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  serene  remoteness  from  the  earth.  Charles  Lamb 
said  that  he  was  the  poet's  poet,  that  is,  he  appealed  wholly 
to  the  artistic  sense  and  to  the  love  of  beauty.  Not  until 
Keats  did  another  English  poet  appear  so  filled  with  the  pas- 
sion for  outward  shapes  of  beauty,  so  exquisitively  alive  to 
all  impressions  of  the  senses.  Spenser  was,  in  some  respects, 
more  an  Italian  than  an  English  poet.  It  is  said  that  the 
Venetian  gondoliers  still  sing  the  stanzas  of  Tasso's  Gerusa- 
lemme  Liberata.  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  the  Thames 
bargees  chanting  passages  from  the  Faerie  Queene.  Those 
English  poets  who  have  taken  strongest  hold  upon  their 
public  have  done  so  by  their  profound  interpretation  of  our 
common  life.  But  Spenser  escaped  altogether  from  reality 
into  a  region  of  pure  imagination.  His  aerial  creations  re- 
semble the  blossoms  of  the  epiphytic  orchids,  which  have  no 
root  in  the  soil,  but  draw  their  nourishment  from  the  moist- 
ure of  the  air. 

Their  birth  was  of  the  womb  of  morning  dew, 
And  their  conception  of  the  glorious  prime. 

Among  the  minor  poems  of  Spenser  the  most  delightful 
were  his  Prothalamion  and  Epithalamion.  The  first  was  a 
"  spousal  verse,"  made  for  the  double  wedding  of  the  Ladies 
Catherine  and  Elizabeth  Somerset,  whom  the  poet  figures  as 
two  white  swans  that  come  swimming  down  the  Thames, 


Fbom  Chaucer  to  Spenser.  55 

the  surface  of  which  the  nymphs  strew  with  lilies,  till  it 
appears  "  like  a  bride's  chamber-floor." 

Sweet  Thames,  run  softly  till  I  end  my  song, 

is  the  burden  of  each  stanza.  The  Epithalamion  was  Spen- 
ser's own  marriage  song,  written  to  crown  his  series  of 
Amoretti  or  love  sonnets,  and  is  the  most  splendid  hymn  of 
triumphant  love  in  the  language.  Hardly  less  beautiful  than 
these  was  Muiopotmos  /  or,  the  Fate  of  the  Butterfly,  an  ad- 
dition to  the  classical  myth  of  Arachne,  the  spider.  The  four 
hymns  in  praise  of  Love  and  Beauty,  Heavenly  Love  and 
Heavenly  Beauty,  are  also  stately  and  noble  poems,  but 
by  reason  of  their  abstractness  and  the  Platonic  mysticism 
which  they  express,  are  less  generally  pleasing  than  the  others 
mentioned.  Allegory  and  mysticism  had  no  natural  affilia- 
tion with  Spenser's  genius.  He  was  a  seer  of  visions,  of 
images  full,  brilliant,  and  distinct;  and  not,  like  Bunyan, 
Dante,  or  Hawthorne,  a  projector  into  bodily  shapes  of  ideas, 
typical  and  emblematic ;  the  shadows  which  haunt  the  con- 
science and  the  mind. 


1.  English  Writers.     Henry  Morley.    Cassell  &  Co.,  1887. 
4  vols. 

2.  Skeat's   Specimens  of   English    Literature,    1394-1579 
(Clarendon  Press  Series.)     Oxford. 

3.  Morte    Darthur.      London:   Macmillan    &    Co.,    1868. 
(Globe  Edition.) 

4.  English   and   Scottish  Ballads.     Edited  by  Francis  J. 
Child.     Boston  :  Ljttle,  Brown  &  Co.,  1859.     8  vols. 

5.  Spenser's  Poetical  Works.     Edited  by  Richard  Morris. 
London:  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1877.     (Globe  Edition.) 

6.  "A  Royal    Poet."      In  Washington    Irving's   Sketch 
Book.     New  York  :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1864. 


56  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 


CHAPTER  HI. 

THE  AGE  OF  SHAKSPERE. 
1564-1616. 

The  great  age  of  English  poetry  opened  with  the  publi- 
cation of  Spenser's  Shepheard^s  Calendar,  in  15*79,  and  closed 
with  the  printing  of  Milton's  Samson  Agonistes,  in  1671. 
Within  this  period  of  little  less  than  a  century  English 
thought  passed  through  many  changes,  and  there  were 
several  successive  phases  of  style  in  our  imaginative  liter- 
ature. Milton,  who  acknowledged  Spenser  as  his  master,  and 
who  was  a  boy  of  eight  years  at  Shakspere's  death,  lived 
long  enough  to  witness  the  establishment  of  an  entirely  new 
school  of  poets,  in  the  persons  of  Dryden  and  his  contempo- 
raries. But,  roughly  speaking,  the  dates  above  given  mark 
the  limits  of  one  literary  epoch,  which  may  not  improperly 
be  called  the  Elizabethan.  In  strictness  the  Elizabethan  age 
ended  with  the  queen's  death,  in  1603.  But  the  poets  of  the 
succeeding  reigns  inherited  much  of  the  glow  and  splendor 
which  marked  the  diction  of  their  forerunners  ;  and  "  the 
spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth  "  have  been,  by  courtesy, 
prolonged  to  the  year  of  the  Restoration  (1660).  There  is  a 
certain  likeness  in  the  intellectual  products  of  the  whole 
period,  a  largeness  of  utterance  and  a  high  imaginative 
cast  of  thought  which  stamp  them  all  alike  with  the  queen's 
seal. 

Nor  is  it  by  any  undue  stretch  of  the  royal  prerogative 
that  the  name  of  the  monarch  has  attached  itself  to  the 
literature  of  her  reign  and  of  the  reigns  succeeding  hers. 
The  expression  "Victorian  poetry"  has  a  rather  absurd 
sound  when  one  considers  how  little  Victoria  counts  for  in 


The  Age  of  Shakspeee.  67 

the  literature  of  her  time.  But  in  Elizabethan  poetry  the 
maiden  queen  is  really  the  central  figure.  She  is  Cynthia, 
she  is  Thetis,  great  queen  of  shepherds  and  of  the  sea  ;  she 
is  Spenser's  Gloriana,  and  even  Shakspere,  the  most  imper- 
sonal of  poets,  paid  tribute  to  her  in  Henry  YIIL,  and,  in  a 
more  delicate  and  indirect  way,  in  the  little  allegory  intro- 
duced into  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream,. 

That  very  time  I  saw — but  thou  could'st  not — 
Flying  between  the  cold  moon  and  the  earth, 
Cupid  all  armed.     A  certain  aim  he  took 
At  a  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  west, 
And  loosed  his  love-shaft  smartly  from  his  bow 
As  it  should  pierce  a  hundred  thousand  hearts. 
But  I  might  see  young  Cupid's  fiery  shaft 
Quenched  in  the  chaste  beams  of  the  watery  moon, 
And  the  imperial  votaress  passed  on 
In  maiden  meditation,  fancy  free — 

an  allusion  to  Leicester's  unsuccessful  suit  for  Elizabeth's 
hand. 

The  praises  of  the  queen,  which  sound  through  all  the 
poetry  of  her  time,  seem  somewhat  overdone  to  a  modern 
reader.  But  they  were  not  merely  the  insipid  language  of 
courtly  compliment.  England  had  never  before  had  a  female 
sovereign,  except  in  the  instance  of  the  gloomy  and  bigoted 
Mary.  When  she  was  succeeded  by  her  more  brilliant  sister 
the  gallantry  of  a  gallant  and  fantastic  age  was  poured  at 
the  latter's  feet,  the  sentiment  of  chivalry  mingling  itself 
with  loyalty  to  the  crown.  The  poets  idealized  Elizabeth. 
She  was  to  Spenser,  to  Sidney,  and  to  Raleigh,  not  merely  a 
woman  and  a  virgin  queen,  but  the  champion  of  Protestant- 
ism, the  lady  of  young  England,  the  heroine  of  the  conflict 
against  popery  and  Spain.  Moreover  Elizabeth  was  a  great 
woman.  In  spite  of  the  vanity,  caprice,  and  ingratitude 
which  disfigured  her  character,  and  the  vacillating,  tortuous 
policy  which  often  distinguished  her  government,  she  was  at 
bottom  a  sovereign  of  large  views,  strong  will,  and  dauntless 


58  Fbom  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

courage.  Like  her  father,  she  "  loved  a  man,''^  and  she  had 
the  magnificent  tastes  of  the  Tudors.  She  was  a  patron  of 
the  arts,  passionately  fond  of  shows  and  spectacles,  and  sen- 
sible to  poetic  flattery.  In  her  royal  progresses  through  the 
kingdom,  the  universities,  the  nobles,  and  the  cities  vied 
with  one  another  in  receiving  her  with  plays,  revels,  masques, 
and  triumphs,  in  the  mythological  taste  of  the  day.  "  When 
the  queen  paraded  through  a  country  town,"  says  Warton, 
the  historian  of  English  poetry,  "  almost  every  pageant  was 
a  pantheon.  When  she  paid  a  visit  at  the  house  of  any  of 
her  nobility,  at  entering  the  hall  she  was  saluted  by  the 
penates.  In  the  afternoon,  when  she  condescended  to  walk 
in  the  garden,  the  lake  was  covered  with  tritons  and  nereids  ; 
the  pages  of  the  family  were  converted  into  wood-nymphs, 
who  peeped  from  every  bower;  and  the  footmen  gamboled 
over  the  lawns  in  the  figure  of  satyrs.  When  her  majesty 
hunted  in  the  park  she  was  met  by  Diana,  who,  pronouncing 
our  royal  prude  to  be  the  brightest  paragon  of  unspotted 
chastity,  invited  her  to  groves  free  from  the  intrusions  of 
Acteon."  The  most  elaborate  of  these  entertainments  of 
which  we  have  any  notice  were,  perhaps,  the  games  cele- 
brated in  her  honor  by  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  when  she  visited 
him  at  Kenil worth,  in  1575.  An  account  of  these  was  pub- 
lished by  a  contemporary  poet,  George  Gascoigne,  77ie 
Princely  Pleasures  at  the  Court  of  Kenilworth^  and  Walter 
Scott  has  made  them  familiar  to  modern  readers  in  his  novel 
of  Kenilworth.  Sidney  was  present  on  this  occasion,  and, 
perhaps,  Shakspere,  then  a  boy  of  eleven,  and  living  at  Strat- 
ford, not  far  off,  may  have  been  taken  to  see  the  spectacle; 
may  have  seen  Neptune  riding  on  the  back  of  a  huge  dolphin 
in  the  castle  lake,  speaking  the  copy  of  verses  in  which  he 
offered  his  trident  to  the  empress  of  the  sea;  and  may  have 

heard  a  mermaid  on  a  dolphin's  back 
Uttering  such  dulcet  and  harmonious  breath 
That  the  rude  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song. 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  59 

But  in  considering  the  literature  of  Elizabeth's  reign  it 
will  be  convenient  to  speak  first  of  tlie  prose.  While  follow- 
ing up  Spenser's  career  to  its  close  (1599)  we  have,  for  the 
sake  of  unity  of  treatment,  anticipated  somewhat  the  liter- 
ary history  of  the  twenty  years  preceding.  In  1579  appeared 
a  book  which  had  a  remarkable  influence  on  English  prose. 
This  was  John  Lyly's  Euphtbes^  the  Anatomy  of  Wit.  It  was 
in  form  a  romance,  the  history  of  a  young  Athenian  who 
went  to  Naples  to  see  the  world  and  get  an  education  ;  but 
it  is  in  substance  nothing  but  a  series  of  dialogues  on  love, 
friendship,  religion,  etc.,  written  in  language  which,  from  the 
title  of  the  book,  has  received  the  name  of  Euphuism.  This 
new  English  became  very  fashionable  among  the  ladies,  and 
"  that  beauty  in  court  which  could  not  parley  Euphuism," 
says  a  writer  of  1632,  "was  as  little  regarded  as  she  which 
now  there  speaks  not  French." 

Walter  Scott  introduced  a  Euphuist  into  his  novel  the 
Monastery^  but  the  peculiar  jargon  which  Sir  Piercie  Shafton 
is  made  to  talk  is  not  at  all  like  the  real  Euphuism.  That  con- 
sisted of  antithesis,  alliteration,  and  the  profuse  illustration 
of  every  thought  by  metaphors  borrowed  from  a  kind  of 
fabulous  natural  history.  "Descend  into  thine  own  con- 
science and  consider  with  thyself  the  great  diflFerence 
between  staring  and  stark-blind,  wit  and  wisdom,  love  and 
lust ;  be  merry,  but  with  modesty ;  be  sober,  but  not  too 
sullen;  be  valiant,  but  not  too  venturous."  "  I  see  now  that, 
as  the  fish  Scolopidics  in  the  flood  Araxes  at  the  waxing  of 
the  moon  is  as  white  as  the  driven  snow,  and  at  the  waning 
as  black  as  the  burnt  coal ;  so  Euphues,  which  at  the  first 
increasing  of  our  familiarity  was  very  zealous,  is  now  at  the 
last  cast  become  most  faithless."  Besides  the  fish  Scolopi- 
dus,  the  favorite  animals  of  Lyly's  menagerie  are  such  as  the 
chameleon,  "  which  though  he  have  most  guts  draweth  least 
breath  ; "  the  bird  Piralis,  "  which  sitting  upon  white  cloth 
is  white,  upon  green,  green ; "  and  the  serpent  Porphirius, 


60  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

"which,  though  he  be  full  of  poison,  yet  having  no  teeth, 
hurteth  none  but  himself." 

Lyly's  style  was  pithy  and  sententious,  and  his  sentences 
have  the  air  of  proverbs  or  epigrams.  The  vice  of  Euphu- 
ism was  its  monotony.  On  every  page  of  the  book  there 
was  something  pungent,  something  quotable;  but  many 
pages  of  such  writing  became  tiresome.  Yet  it  did  much  to 
form  the  hitherto  loose  structure  of  English  prose,  by  lend- 
ing it  point  and  polish.  His  carefully  balanced  periods  were 
valuable  lessons  in  rhetoric,  and  his  book  became  a  manual 
of  polite  conversation  and  introduced  that  fashion  of  witty 
repartee,  which  is  evident  enough  in  Shakspere's  comic  dia- 
logue. In  1580  appeared  the  second  ipa,rt,  .Mcphices  and  his 
England,  and  six  editions  of  the  whole  work  were  printed 
before  1598.  Lyly  had  many  imitators.  In  Stephen  Gosson's 
School  of  AJmse,  a  tract  directed  against  the  stage  and  pub- 
lished about  four  months  later  than  the  first  part  of  Euphues, 
the  language  is  directly  Euphuistic.  The  dramatist,  Robert 
Greene,  published,  in  1587,  his  Menaphon;  CamillcC s  Alarum 
to  Slumbering  Euphues,  and  his  Euphue^s  Censure  to  Phi- 
lauttcs.  His  brother  dramatist,  Thomas  Lodge,  published, 
in  1590,  Rosalynde:  Euphuesh  Golden  Legacy,  from  which 
Shakspere  took  the  plot  of  As  You  Like  It.  Shakspere 
and  Ben  Jonson  both  quote  from  Euphues  in  their  plays, 
and  Shakspere  was  really  writing  Euphuism  when  he 
wrote  such  a  sentence  as  "  'Tis  true,  'tis  pity ;  pity  'tis  'tis 
true." 

That  knightly  gentleman,  Philip  Sidney,  was  a  true  type 
of  the  lofty  aspiration  and  manifold  activity  of  Elizabethan 
England,  He  was  scholar,  poet,  courtier,  diplomatist,  sol- 
dier, all  in  one.  Educated  at  Oxford  and  then  introduced 
at  court  by  his  uncle,  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  he  had  been  sent 
to  France  when  a  lad  of  eighteen,  with  the  embassy  which 
went  to  treat  of  the  queen's  proposed  marriage  to  the  Duke 
of  Alenpon,  and  was  in  Paris  at  the  time  of  the  Massacre  of 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  61 

St.  Bartholomew,  in  1572.  Afterward  he  had  traveled 
through  Germany,  Italy,  and  the  Netherlands,  had  gone  aa 
embassador  to  the  emperor's  court,  and  every-where  won 
golden  opinions.  In  1580,  while  visiting  his  sister  Mary, 
Countess  of  Pembroke,  at  Wilton,  he  wrote,  for  her  pleas- 
ure, the  Countess  of  Pembroke's  Arcadia,  which  remained  in 
manuscript  till  1590.  This  was  a  pastoral  romance,  after  the 
manner  of  the  Italian  Arcadia  of  Sanazzaro,  and  the  Diana 
Enan\orada  of  Montemayor,  a  Portuguese  author.  It  was  in 
prose,  but  intermixed  with  songs  and  sonnets,  and  Sidney 
finished  only  two  books  and  a  portion  of  the  third.  It 
describes  the  adventures  of  two  cousins,  Musidorus  and  Pyro- 
cles,  who  were  wrecked  on  the  coast  of  Sparta.  The  plot  is 
very  involved  and  is  full  of  the  stock  episodes  of  romance  : 
disguises,  surprises,  love  intrigues,  battles,  jousts  and  single 
combats.  Although  the  insurrection  of  the  Helots  against 
the  Spartans  forms  a  part  of  the  story,  the  Arcadia  is  not 
the  real  Arcadia  of  the  Hellenic  Peloponnesus,  but  the  fanci- 
ful country  of  pastoral  romance,  an  unreal  clime,  like  the 
fairy  land  of  Spenser. 

Sidney  was  our  first  writer   of    poetic  prose.     The  poet 

Drayton  says  that  he 

did  first  reduce 
Our  tongue  from  Lyly's  writing,  then  in  use, 
Talking  of  stones,  stars,  plants,  of  fishes,  files, 
Playing  with  words  and  idle  similes. 

Sidney  was  certainly  no  Euphuist,  but  his  style  was  as  "  Ital- 
ianated  "  as  Lyly's,  though  in  a  diflFerent  way.  His  English 
wa^  too  pretty  for  prose.  His  "  Sidneian  showers  of  sweet 
discourse  "  sowed  every  page  of  the  Arcadia  with  those 
flowers  of  conceit,  those  sugared  fancies  which  his  contem- 
poraries loved,  but  which  the  taste  of  a  severer  age  finds 
insipid.  This  splendid  vice  of  the  Elizabethan  writers 
appears  in  Sidney,  chiefly  in  the  form  of  an  excessive  per- 
sonification.    If  he  describes  a  field  full  of  roses,  he  makes 


62  From  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

"the  roses  add  such  a  ruddy  show  unto  it,  as  though  the 
field  were  bashful  at  his  own  beauty."  If  he  describes  ladies 
bathing  in  the  stream,  he  makes  the  water  break  into  twenty 
bubbles,  as  "  not  content  to  have  the  picture  of  their  face  in 
large  upon  him,  but  he  would  in  each  of  those  bubbles  set 
forth  a  miniature  of  them,"  And  even  a  passage  which 
should  be  tragic,  such  as  the  death  of  his  heroine,  Parthenia, 
he  embroiders  with  conceits  like  these:  "For  her  exceeding 
fair  eyes  having  with  continued  weeping  got  a  little  redness 
about  them,  her  round  sweetly  swelling  lips  a  little  trembling, 
as  though  they  kissed  their  neighbor  Death;  in  her  cheeks 
the  whiteness  striving  by  little  and  little  to  get  upon  the 
rosiness  of  them ;  her  neck,  a  neck  of  alabaster,  displaying 
the  wound  which  with  most  dainty  blood  labored  to  drown 
his  own  beauties  ;  so  as  here  was^  a  river  of  purest  red,  there 
an  island  of  perfectest  white,"  etc. 

The  Arcadia,  like  Euphues,  was  a  lady's  book.  It  was  the 
favorite  court  romance  of  its  day,  but  it  surfeits  a  modern 
reader  with  its  sweetness,  and  confuses  him  with  its  tangle 
of  adventures.  The  lady  for  whom  it  was  written  was  the 
mother  of  that  William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  to  whom 
Shakspere's  sonnets  are  thought  to  have  been  dedicated. 
And  she  was  the  subject  of  Ben  Jonson's  famous  epitaph. 

Underneath  thia  sable  herse 
Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse, 
Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother ; 
Death,  ere  thou  hast  slain  another 
Leam'd  and  fair  and  good  as  she, 
Time  shall  throw  a  dart  at  thee. 

Sidney's  Defense  of  Poesy  composed  in  1581,  but  not 
printed  till  1595,  was  written  in  manlier  English  than  the 
Arcadia,  and  is  one  of  the  very  few  books  of  criticism 
belonging  to  a  creative  and  uncritical  time.  He  was  also  the 
author  of  a  series  of  love  sonnets,  Astrophel  and  Stella,  in 
which  he  paid  Platonic  court  to   the  Lady  Penelope   Rich 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  63 

(with  whom  he  was  not  in  love),  according  to  the  conven- 
tional usage  of  the  amourists. 

Sidney  died  in  1586,  from  a  wound  received  in  a  cavalry 
charge  at  Zutphen,  where  he  was  an  officer  in  the  English 
contingent  sent  to  help  the  Dutch  against  Spain.  The  story 
has  often  been  told  of  his  giving  his  cup  of  water  to  a 
wounded  soldier  with  the  words,  "Thy  necessity  is  yet 
greater  than  mine."  Sidney  was  England's  darling,  and 
there  was  hardly  a  poet  in  the  land  from  whom  his  death  did 
not  obtain  "  the  meed  of  some  melodious  tear."  Spenser's 
Iticins  of  Time  were  among  the  number  of  these  funeral 
songs;  but  the  best  of  them  all  was  by  one  Matthew  Roy- 
den,  concerning  whom  little  is  known. 

Another  typical  Englishman  of  Elizabeth's  reign  was 
Walter  Raleigh,  who  was  even  more  versatile  than  Sidney, 
and  more  representative  of  the  restless  spirit  of  romantic 
adventure,  mixed  with  cool,  practical  enterprise  that  marked, 
the  times.  He  fought  against  the  queen's  enemies  by  land 
and  sea  in  many  quarters  of  the  globe  ;  in  the  Netherlands 
and  in  Ireland  against  Spain,  with  the  Huguenot  army 
against  the  League  in  France.  Raleigh  was  from  Devonshire, 
the  great  nursery  of  English  seamen.  He  was  half-brother 
to  the  famous  navigator.  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  and  cousin 
to  another  great  captain,  Sir  Richard  Grenville.  He  sailed 
with  Gilbert  on  one  of  his  voyages  against  the  Spanish 
treasure  fleet,  and  in  1591  he  published  a  report  of  the  fight, 
near  the  Azores,  between  Grenville's  ship,  the  Revenge,  and 
fifteen  great  ships  of  Spain,  an  action,  said  Francis  Bacon, 
"memorable  even  beyond  credit,  and  to  the  height  of  some 
heroical  fable."  Raleigh  was  active  in  raising  a  fleet  against 
the  Spanish  Armada  of  1588.  He  was  present  in  1596  at 
the  brilliant  action  in  which  the  Earl  of  Essex  "  singed  the 
Spanish  king's  beard,"  in  the  harbor  of  Cadiz.  The  year 
before  he  had  sailed  to  Guiana,  in  search  of  the  fabled 
El  Dorado,  destroying  on  the  way  the  Spanish  town  of  San 


64  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Jose,  in  the  West  Indies  ;  and  on  his  return  he  published 
his  Discovery  of  the  Empire  of  Guiana.  In  1597  he  captured 
the  town  of  Fayal,  in  the  Azores.  He  took  a  prominent  part 
in  colonizing  Virginia,  and  he  introduced  tobacco  and  the 
potato  plant  into  Europe. 

America  was  still  a  land  of  wonder  and  romance,  full 
of  rumors,  nightmares,  and  enchantments.  In  1580,  when 
Francis  Drake,  "the  Devonshire  Skipper,"  had  dropped 
anchor  in  Plymouth  Harbor,  after  his  voyage  around  the 
world,  the  enthusiasm  of  England  had  been  mightily  stirred. 
These  narratives  of  Raleigh,  and  the  similar  accounts  of  the 
exploits  of  the  bold  sailors,  Davis,  Hawkins,  Frobisher,  Gil- 
bert, and  Drake  ;  but  especially  the  great  cyclopedia  of 
nautical  travel,  published  by  Richard  Hakluyt  in  1589,  The 
Principal  Navigations,  Voyages,  and  Discoveries  tnade  hy 
the  English  Nation,  worked  powerfully  on  the  imaginations 
of  the  poets.  We  see  the  influence  of  this  literature  of 
travel  in  the  Tempest,  written  undoubtedly  after  Shakspere 
had  been  reading  the  nan-ative  of  Sir  George  Somers's  ship- 
wreck on  the  Bermudas  or  "  Isles  of  Devils." 

Raleigh  was  not  in  favor  with  Elizabeth's  successor,  James 
I.  He  was  sentenced  to  death  on  a  trumped-up  charge  of 
high  treason.  The  sentence  hung  over  him  until  1618,  when 
it  was  revived  against  him  and  he  was  beheaded.  Mean- 
while, during  his  twelve  years'  imprisonment  in  the  Tower, 
he  had  written  his  magnum  opus,  the  History  of  the  World. 
This  is  not  a  history,  in  the  modern  sense,  but  a  series  of 
learned  dissertations  on  law,  government,  theology,  magic, 
war,  etc.  A  chapter  with  such  a  caption  as  the  following 
would  hardly  be  found  in  a  universal  history  nowadays: 
"Of  their  opinion  which  make  Paradise  as  high  as  the 
moon  ;  and  of  others  which  make  it  higher  than  the  mid- 
dle regions  of  the  air."  The  preface  and  conclusion  are 
noble  examples  of  Elizabethan  prose,  and  the  book  ends 
with  an  oft-quoted  apostrophe  to  Death.     "  O  eloquent,  just 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  66 

and  mighty  Death  !  Whom  none  could  advise,  thou  hast 
persuaded ;  what  none  hath  dared,  thou  hast  done  ;  and  whom 
all  the  world  hath  flattered,  thou  only  hast  cast  out  of  the 
world  and  despised ;  thou  hast  drawn  together  all  the  far- 
fetched greatness,  all  the  pride,  cruelty,  and  ambition  of 
man,  and  covered  it  all  over  with  these  two  narrow  words, 
Mcjacet?'' 

Although  so  busy  a  man,  Raleigh  found  time  to  be  a  poet. 
Spenser  calls  him  "  the  summer's  nightingale,"  and  George 
Puttenham,  in  his  Art  of  English  Poesy  (1589),  finds  his 
"  vein  most  lofty,  insolent,  and  passionate."  Puttenham  used 
insolent  in  its  old  sense,  uncommon  /  but  this  description  is 
hardly  less  true,  if  we  accept  the  word  in  its  modern  mean- 
ing. Raleigh's  most  notable  verses,  The  Lie,  are  a  challenge 
to  the  world,  inspired  by  indignant  pride  and  the  weariness 
of  life  —  the  saeva  indignatio  of  Swift.  The  same  grave  and 
caustic  melancholy,  the  same  disillusion  marks  his  quaint 
poem.  The  Pilgrimage.  It  is  remarkable  how  many  of  the 
verses  among  his  few  poetical  remains  are  asserted  in  the  man- 
uscripts or  by  tradition  to  have  been  "  made  by  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  the  night  before  he  was  beheaded."  Of  one  such 
poem  the  assertion  is  probably  true — namely,  the  lines 
"found  in  his  Bible  in  the  gate-house  at  Westminster." 

Even  such  is  Time,  that  takes  in  trust, 
Our  youth,  our  joys,  our  all  we  have, 

And  pays  us  but  with  earth  and  dust; 
Who  in  the  dark  and  silent  grave, 

"When  we  have  wandered  all  our  ways, 

Shuts  up  the  story  of  our  days ; 

But  from  this  earth,  this  grave,  this  dust, 

My  God  shall  raise  me  up,  I  trust  1 

The  strictly  literary  prose  of  the  Elizabethan  period  bore  a 
small  proportion  to  the  verse.  Many  entire  departments  of 
prose  literature  were  as  yet  undeveloped.  Fiction  was 
represented  —  outside  of  the  Arcadia  and  Euphuee  already 


66         From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

mentioned  —  chiefly  by  tales  translated  or  imitated  from 
Italian  novelle.  George  Turberville's  IVagical  Tales  (1566) 
was  a  collection  of  such  stories,  and  William  Paynter's 
Palace  of  Pleasure  (1576-1577)  a  similar  collection  from 
Boccaccio's  Decameron  and  the  novels  of  Bandello.  These 
translations  are  mainly  of  interest  as  having  furnished  plots 
to  the  English  dramatists.  Lodge's  Rosalind  and  Robert 
Greene's  Pandosto,  the  sources  respectively  of  Shakspere's 
As  You  Like  It  and  'Winter''s  Tale,  are  short  pastoral 
romances,  not  without  prettiness  in  their  artificial  way.  The 
satirical  pamphlets  of  Thomas  Nash  and  his  fellows,  against 
"  Martin  Marprelate,"  an  anonymous  writer,  or  company  of 
writers,  who  attacked  the  bishops,  are  not  wanting  in  wit, 
but  are  so  cumbered  with  fantastic  whimsicalities,  and  so 
bound  up  with  personal  quarrels,  that  oblivion  has  covered 
them.  The  most  noteworthy  of  them  were  Nash's  Piers 
Penniless's  Supplication  to  the  Devil,  Lyly's  Pap  with  a 
Hatchet,  and  Greene's  Groafs  Worth  of  Wit.  Of  books 
which  were  not  so  much  literature  as  the  material  of  litera- 
ture, mention  may  be  made  of  the  Chronicle  of  England, 
published  by  Ralph  Holinshed  in  1580.  This  was  Shakspere's 
English  history,  and  its  strong  Lancastrian  bias  influenced 
Shakspere  in  his  representation  of  Richard  III.  and  other 
characters  in  his  historical  plays.  In  his  Roman  tragedies 
Shakspere  followed  closely  Sir  Thomas  North's  translation 
of  Plutarch's  Lives,  made  in  1579  from  the  French  version 
of  Jacques  Amyot. 

Of  books  belonging  to  other  departments  than  pure  litera- 
ture, the  most  important  was  Richard  Hooker's  EcclesiaS' 
tical  Polity,  the  first  four  books  of  which  appeared  in  1594. 
This  was  a  work  on  the  philosophy  of  law,  and  a  defense,  as 
against  the  Presbyterians,  of  the  government  of  the  English 
Church  by  bishops.  No  work  of  equal  dignity  and  scope 
had  yet  been  published  in  English  prose.  It  was  written  in 
sonorous,  stately,  and  somewhat  involved  periods,  in  a  Latin 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  67 

rather  than  an  English  idiom,  and  it  influenced  strongly  the 
diction  of  later  writers,  such  as  Milton  and  Sir  Thomas 
Browne.  Had  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity  been  written  one 
hundred,  or  perhaps  even  fifty,  years  earlier,  it  would  doubt- 
less have  been  written  in  Latin. 

The  life  of  Francis  Bacon,  "  the  father  of  inductive  philos- 
ophy," as  he  has  been  called — better,  the  founder  of  in- 
ductive logic — belongs  to  English  history,  and  the  bulk  of 
his  writings,  in  Latin  and  English,  to  the  history  of  English 
philosophy.  But  his  volume  of  Essays  was  a  contribution 
to  general  literature.  In  their  completed  form  they  belong 
to  the  year  1625,  but  the  first  edition  wns  printed  in  1597 
and  contained  only  ten  short  essays,  each  of  them  rather  a 
string  of  pregnant  maxims — the  text  for  an  essay — than 
that  developed  treatment  of  a  subject  which  we  now  under- 
stand by  the  word  essay.  They  were,  said  their  author,  "  as 
grains  of  salt,  that  will  rather  give  you  an  appetite  than 
offend  you  with  satiety."  They  were  the  first  essays,  so 
called,  in  the  language.  "  The  word,"  said  Bacon,  "  is  late, 
but  the  thing  is  ancient."  The  word  he  took  from  the 
French  essais  of  Montaigne,  the  first  two  books  of  which  had 
been  published  in  1592.  Bacon  testified  that  his  essays  were 
the  most  popular  of  his  writings  because  they  "  came  home 
to  men's  business  and  bosoms."  Their  alternate  title  explains 
their  character  :  Counsels  Civil  and  Moral,  that  is,  pieces  of 
advice  touching  the  conduct  of  life,  "  of  a  nature  whereof 
men  shall  find  much  in  experience,  little  in  books."  The 
essays  contain  the  quintessence  of  Bacon's  practical  wisdom, 
his  wide  knowledge  of  the  world  of  men.  The  truth  and 
depth  of  his  sayings,  and  the  extent  of  ground  which  they 
cover,  as  well  as  the  weighty  compactness  of  his  style,  have 
given  many  of  them  the  currency  of  proverbs.  "  Revenge 
is  a  kind  of  wild  justice."  "He  that  hath  wife  and  children 
hath  given  hostages  to  fortune."  "There  is  no  excellent 
beauty  that  hath  not  some  strangeness  in  the  proportion." 


68  Fkom  Chaucer  to  TENifYsosr. 

Bacon's  reason  was  illuminated  by  a  powerful  imagination, 
and  his  noble  English  rises  now  and  then,  as  in  his  essay 
On  Death,  into  eloquence — the  eloquence  of  pure  thought, 
touched  gravely  and  afar  off  by  emotion.  In  general,  the 
atmosphere  of  his  intellect  is  that  lumen  siccum  which  he 
loved  to  commend,  "  not  drenched  or  bloodied  by  the  affec- 
tions." Dr.  Johnson  said  that  the  wine  of  Bacon's  writings 
was  a  dry  wine. 

A  popular  class  of  books  in  the  l7th  century  were  "char- 
acters" or  "witty  descriptions  of  the  properties  of  sundry 
persons,"  such  as  the  Good  Schoolmaster,  the  Clown,  the 
Country  Magistrate ;  much  as  in  some  modern  Heads  of  the 
People,  where  Douglas  Jerrold  or  Leigh  Hunt  sketches  the 
Medical  Student,  the  Monthly  Nurse,  etc.  A  still  more 
modern  instance  of  the  kind  is  George  Eliot's  Impressions  of 
Theophrastus  Such,  which  derives  its  title  from  the  Greek 
philosopher,  Theophrastus,  whose  character-sketches  were 
the  original  models  of  this  kind  of  literature.  The  most 
popular  character-book  in  Europe  in  the  17th  century  was 
La  Bruyere's  Caracthres.  But  this  was  not  published  till 
1688.  In  England  the  fashion  had  been  set  in  1614,  by  the 
Characters  of  Sir  Thomas  Overbury,  who  died  by  poison  the 
year  before  his  book  was  printed.  One  of  Overbury's 
sketches — the  Fair  and  Happy  Milkmaid — is  justly  cele- 
brated for  its  old-world  sweetness  and  quaintness.  "Her 
breath  is  her  own,  which  scents  all  the  year  long  of  June, 
like  a  new-made  hay-cock.  She  makes  her  hand  hard  with 
labor,  and  her  heart  soft  with  pity ;  and  when  winter  even- 
ings fall  early,  sitting  at  her  merry  wheel,  she  sings  defiance 
to  the  giddy  wheel  of  fortune.  She  bestows  her  year's 
wages  at  next  fair,  and,  in  choosing  her  garments,  counts  no 
bravery  in  the  world  like  decency.  The  garden  and  bee-hive 
are  all  her  physic  and  surgery,  and  she  lives  the  longer  for 
it.  She  dares  go  alone  and  unfold  sheep  in  the  night,  and 
fears  no  manner  of  ill,  because  she  means  none ;  yet  to  say 


The  Age  of  Shakspeee.  69 

truth,  she  is  never  alone,  but  is  still  accompanied  with  old 
songs,  honest  thoughts  and  prayers,  but  short  ones.  Thus 
lives  she,  and  all  her  care  is  she  may  die  in  the  spring-time, 
to  have  store  of  flowers  stuck  upon  her  winding-sheet." 

England  was  still  merry  England  in  the  times  of  good 
Queen  Bess,  and  rang  with  old  songs,  such  as  kept  this  milk- 
maid company ;  songs,  said  Bishop  Joseph  Hall,  which  were 
"  sung  to  the  wheel  and  sung  unto  the  pail."  Shakspere 
loved  their  simple  minstrelsy  ;  he  put  some  of  them  into  the 
mouth  of  Ophelia,  and  scattered  snatches  of  them  through 
his  plays,  and  wrote  others  like  them  himself  ; 

Now,  good  Cesario,  but  that  piece  of  song, 

That  old  and  antique  song  we  heard  last  night. 

Methinks  it  did  relieve  my  passion  much, 

More  than  light  airs  and  recollected  terms 

Of  these  most  brisk  and  giddy-paced  times. 

Mark  it,  Cesario,  it  is  old  and  plain. 

The  knitters  and  the  .spinners  in  the  sun 

And  the  free  maids  that  weave  their  threads  with  bones 

Do  use  to  chant  it ;  it  is  silly  sooth  ^ 

And  dallies  with  the  innocence  of  love 

Like  the  old  age. 

Many  of  these  songs,  so  natural,  fresh,  and  spontaneous, 
together  with  sonnets  and  other  more  elaborate  forms  of 
lyrical  verse,  were  printed  in  miscellanies,  such  as  the  Pas- 
sionate Pilgrim,  PJnglancVs  Helicon,  and  Davison's  Poetical 
Rhapsody.  Some  were  anonymous,  or  were  by  poets  of 
whom  little  more  is  known  than  their  names.  Others  were  by 
well-known  writers,  and  others,  again,  were  strewn  through 
the  plays  of  Lyly,  Shakspere,  Jonson,  Beaumont,  Fletcher, 
and  other  dramatists.  Series  of  love  sonnets,  like  Spenser's 
Amoretti  and  Sidney's  Astrophel  and  Stella,  were  written  by 
Shakspere,  Daniel,  Drayton,  Drummond,  Constable,  Watson, 
and  others,  all  dedicated  to  some  mistress  real  or  imaginary. 
Pastorals,  too,  were  written  in  great  number,  such  as 
'  Simple  truth. 


10  From  Chauckr  to  Tennyson. 

William  Browne's  Britannia's  Pastorals  and  Shepherd^s  Pipe 
(1613-1616)  and  Marlowe's  charmingly  rococo  little  idyl,  The 
Passionate  Shepherd  to  his  Love,  which  Shakspere  quoted  in 
the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  and  to  which  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  wrote  a  reply.  There  were  love  stories  in  verse, 
like  Arthur  Brooke's  Romeo  and  Juliet  (the  source  of  Shaks- 
pere's  tragedy),  Marlowe's  fragment,  Sero  and  Leander,  and 
Shakspere's  Venus  and  Adonis,  and  Pape  of  Lu,crece,  the  first 
of  these  on  an  Italian  and  the  other  three  on  classical  sub- 
jects, though  handled  in  any  thing  but  a  classical  manner. 
Wordsworth  said  finely  of  Shakspere,  that  he  "  could  not 
have  written  an  epic  :  he  would  have  died  of  a  plethora  of 
thought."  Shakspere's  two  narrative  poems,  indeed,  are  by 
no  means  models  of  their  kind.  The  current  of  the  story  is 
choked  at  every  turn,  though  it  be  with  golden  sand.  It  is 
significant  of  his  dramatic  habit  of  mind  that  dialogue  and 
soliloquy  usurp  the  place  of  narration,  and  that,  in  the  Pape 
of  Lucrece  especially,  the  poet  lingers  over  the  analysis  of 
motives  and  feelings,  instead  of  hastening  on  with  the  action, 
as  Chaucer,  or  any  born  story-teller,  would  have  done. 

In  Marlowe's  poem  there  is  the  same  spendthrift  fancy, 
although  not  the  same  subtlety.  In  the  first  two  divisions 
of  the  poem  the  story  does,  in  some  sort,  get  forward ;  but 
in  the  continuation,  by  George  Chapman  (who  wrote  the  last 
four  "sestiads"),*  the  path  is  utterly  lost,  "with  woodbine 
and  the  gadding  vine  o'ergrown."  One  is  reminded  that 
modern  poetry,  if  it  has  lost  in  richness,  has  gained  in  direct- 
ness, when  one  compares  any  passage  in  Marlowe  and  Chap- 
man's H&ro  and  Leander  with  Byron's  ringing  lines  : 

The  Tvind  is  high  on  Helle's  wave, 
As  on  that  night  of  stormy  water, 
When  love,  who  sent,  forgot  to  save 
The  young,  the  beautiful,  the  brave, 
The  lonely  hope  of  Sestos'  daughter. 

'  From  Sestos  on  the  Hellespont,  where  Hero  dwelt. 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  71 

Marlowe's  continuator,  Chapman,  wrote  a  number  of  plays, 
but  he  is  best  remembered  by  his  royal  translation  of  Homer, 
issued  in  parts  from  1598-1615.  This  was  not  so  much  a 
literal  translation  of  the  Greek,  as  a  great  Elizabethan  poem, 
inspired  by  Homer.  It  has  Homer's  fire,  but  not  his  sim- 
plicity ;  the  energy  of  Chapman's  fancy  kindling  him  to  run 
beyond  his  text  into  all  manner  of  figures  and  conceits.  It 
was  written,  as  has  been  said,  as  Homer  would  have  written 
if  he  had  been  an  Englishman  of  Chapman's  time.  Keats's 
fine  ode.  On  First  Looking  into  ChapmarCs  Horner^  is  well 
known.  In  his  translation  of  the  Odyssey,  Chapman  em- 
ployed the  ten-syllabled  heroic  line  chosen  by  most  of  the 
standard  translators  ;  but  for  the  Iliad  he  used  the  long 
"  fourteener."  Certainly  all  later  versions — Pope's  and  Cow- 
per's  and  Lord  Derby's  and  Bryant's — seem  pale  against  the 
glowing  exuberance  of  Chapman's  English,  which  degener- 
ates easily  into  sing-song  in  the  hands  of  a  feeble  metrist. 
In  Chapman  it  is  often  harsh,  but  seldom  tame,  and  in  many 
passages  it  reproduces  wonderfully  the  ocean-like  roll  of 
Homer's  hexameters. 

From  his  bright  helm  and  shield  did  burn  a  most  unwearied  fire, 
Like  rich  Autumnus'  golden  lamp,  whose  brightness  men  admire 
Past  all  the  other  host  of  stars  wiien,  with  his  cheerful  face 
Fresh  washed  in  lofty  ocean  waves,  he  doth  the  sky  enchase. 

The  national  pride  in  the  achievements  of  Englishmen,  by 
land  and  sea,  found  expression,  not  only  in  prose  chronicles 
and  in  books,  like  Stow's  Survey  of  London,  and  Harrison's 
Description  of  England  (prefixed  to  Holinshed's  Chronicle), 
but  in  long  historical  and  descriptive  poems,  like  William 
"Warner's  Albio7i's  England,  1586  ;  Samuel  Daniel's  History 
of  the  Civil  Wars,  1595-1602;  Michael  Drayton's  Barons^ 
Wars,  1596,  England^ s  Heroical  Epistles,  1598,  and  Polyol- 
bion,  1613.  The  very  plan  of  these  works  was  fatal  to  their 
success.     It  is  not  easy  to  digest  history  and  geography  into 


72  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

poetry.  Drayton  was  the  most  considerable  poet  of  the 
three,  but  his  Polyolbion  was  nothing  more  than  a  "  gazeteer 
in  rime,"  a  topographical  survey  of  England  and  Wales, 
with  tedious  personifications  of  rivers,  mountains,  and  val- 
leys, in  thirty  books  and  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  lines. 
It  was  Drayton  who  said  of  Marlowe,  that  he  "  had  in  him 
those  brave  translunary  things  that  the  first  poets  had  ;  " 
and  there  are  brave  things  in  Drayton,  but  they  are  only 
occasional  passages,  oases  among  dreary  wastes  of  sand. 
His  Agincourt  is  a  spirited  war-song,  and  his  Nymphidia; 
or,  Court  of  Faery,  is  not  unworthy  of  comparison  with 
Drake's  Culprit  Fay,  and  is  interesting  as  bringing  in  Oberon 
and  Robin  Goodfellow,  and  the  popular  fairy  lore  of  Shak- 
spere's  Midsummer  NigMs  Dream. 

The  "  well-languaged  Daniel,"  of  whom  Ben  Jonson  said 
that  he  was  "  a  good  honest  man,  but  no  poet,"  wrote,  how- 
ever, one  fine  meditative  piece,  his  Fpistle  to  the  Countess  of 
Cumberland,  a  sermon  apparently  on  the  text  of  the  Roman 
poet  Lucretius's  famous  passage  in  praise  of  philosophy, 

Suave,  mari  magno,  turbantibus  fequora  ventis, 
B  terra  magnum  alterius  spectare  laborem. 

But  the  Elizabethan  genius  found  its  fullest  and  truest 
expression  in  the  drama.  It  is  a  common  phenomenon  in 
the  history  of  literature  that  some  old  literary  form  or  mold 
will  run  along  for  centuries  without  having  any  thing  poured 
into  it  worth  keeping,  until  the  moment  comes  when  the 
genius  of  the  time  seizes  it  and  makes  it  the  vehicle  of  im- 
mortal thought  and  passion.  Such  was  in  England  the  fort- 
une of  the  stage  play.  At  a  time  when  Chaucer  was  writing 
character-sketches  that  were  really  dramatic,  the  formal 
drama  consisted  of  rude  miracle  plays  that  had  no  literary 
quality  whatever^  These  were  taken  from  the  Bible,  and 
acted  at  first  by  the  priests  as  illustrations  of  Scripture  his- 
tory and  additions  to  the  church  service  on  feasts  and  saints* 


The  Age  of  Shakspeke.  13 

days.  Afterward  the  town  guilds,  or  incorporated  trades, 
took  hold  of  them,  and  produced  them  annually  on  scaffolds 
in  the  open  air.  In  some  English  cities,  as  Coventry  and 
Chester,  they  continued  to  be  performed  almost  to  the  close 
of  the  16th  century.  And  in  the  celebrated  Passion  Play 
at  Oberammergau,  in  Bavaria,  we  have  an  instance  of  a  mira- 
cle play  that  has  survived  to  our  own  day.  These  were  fol- 
lowed by  the  moral  plays,  in  which  allegorical  characters, 
such  as  Clergy,  Lusty  Juventus,  Riches,  Folly,  and  Good 
Demeanaunce  were  the  persons  of  the  drama.  The  comic 
character  in  the  miracle  plays  had  been  the  Devil,  and  he 
was  retained  in  some  of  the  moralities  side  by  side  with  the 
abstract  vice,  who  became  the  clown  or  fool  of  Shakspei-ian 
comedy.  The  "formal  Vice,  Iniquity,"  as  Shakspere  calls 
him,  had  it  for  his  business  to  belabor  the  roaring  Devil  with 
his  wooden  sword  : 

.  .  .  with  his  dagger  of  lath 
In  his  rage  aud  his  wrath 
Cries  '  Aha  I '  to  the  Devil, 
*  Pare  your  nails,  Goodman  Evil ! ' 

He  survives  also  in  the  harlequin  of  the  pantomimes,  and  in 
Mr.  Punch,  of  the  puppet  shows,  who  kills  the  Devil  and 
carries  him  off  on  his  back,  when  the  latter  is  sent  to  fetch 
him  to  hell  for  his  crimes. 

Masques  and  interludes — the  latter  a  species  of  short  farce 
— were  popular  at  the  court  of  Henry  VIII.  Elizabeth  was 
often  entertained  at  the  universities  or  at  the  inns  of  court 
with  Latin  plays,  or  with  translations  from  Seneca,  Euripides, 
and  Ariosto.  Original  comedies  and  tragedies  began  to  be 
written,  modeled  upon  Terence  and  Seneca,  and  chronicle 
histories  founded  on  the  annals  of  English  kings.  There 
was  a  master  of  the  revels  at  court,  whose  duty  it  was  to 
select  plays  to  be  performed  before  the  queen,  and  these  were 
acted  by  the  children  of  the  Royal  Chapel,  or  by  the  choir 
boys  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.     These  early  plays  are  of  inter- 


74  From  Chauceb  to  Tbiotyson. 

est  to  students  of  the  history  of  the  drama,  and  throw  much 
light  upon  the  construction  of  later  plays,  like  Shakspere's  ; 
but  they  are  rude  and  inartistic,  and  without  any  literary 
value. 

There  were  also  private  companies  of  actors  maintained 
by  wealthy  noblemen,  like  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  and  bands 
of  strolling  players,  who  acted  in  inn-yards  and  bear-gardens. 
It  was  not  until  stationary  theaters  were  built  and  stock  com- 
panies of  actors  regularly  licensed  and  established,  that  any 
plays  were  produced  which  deserve  the  name  of  literature. 
In  1576  the  first  London  play-houses,  known  as  the  Theater 
and  the  Curtain,  were  erected  in  the  suburb  of  Shoreditch,  out- 
side the  city  walls.  Later  the  Rose,  the  Hope,  the  Globe,  and 
the  Swan  were  built  on  the  Bankside,  across  the  Thames,  and 
play-goers  resorting  to  them  were  accustomed  to  "  take  boat." 
These  locations  were  chosen  in  order  to  get  outside  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  mayor  and  corporation,  who  were  Puritans,  and 
determined  in  their  opposition  to  the  stage.  For  the  same 
reason  the  Blackfriars,  belonging  to  the  company  that  owned 
the  Globe — the  company  in  which  Shakspere  was  a  stock- 
holder— was  built,  about  1596,  within  the  "liberties"  of  the 
dissolved  monastery  of  the  Blackfriars. 

These  early  theaters  were  of  the  rudest  construction.  The 
six-penny  spectators,  or  "  groundlings,"  stood  in  the  yard  or 
pit,  which  had  neither  floor  nor  roof.  The  shilling  spectators 
sat  on  the  stage,  where  they  were  accommodated  with  stools 
and  tobacco  pipes,  and  whence  they  chaffed  the  actors  or  the 
"  opposed  rascality "  in  the  yard.  There  was  no  scenery, 
and  the  female  parts  were  taken  by  boys.  Plays  were  acted 
in  the  afternoon.  A  placard,  with  the  letters  "  Venice,"  or 
"  Rome,"  or  whatever,  indicated  the  place  of  the  action. 
With  such  rude  appliances  must  Shakspere  bring  before  his 
audience  the  midnight  battlements  of  Elsinore  and  the  moon- 
lit garden  of  the  Capulets.  The  dramatists  had  to  throw 
themselves  upon  the  imagination  of  their  public,  and  it  says 


The  Age  op  Shakspebe.  76 

much  for  the  imaginative  temper  of  the  public  of  that  day, 
that  it  responded  to  the  appeal.  It  suffered  the  poet  to  trans- 
port it  over  wide  intervals  of  space  and  time,  and  "  with  aid 
of  some  few  foot  and  half-foot  words,  fight  over  York  and 
Lancaster's  longjars."  Pedantry  undertook,  even  at  the  very 
beginnings  of  the  Elizabethan  drama,  to  shackle  it  with  the 
so-called  rules  of  Aristotle,  or  classical  unities  of  time  and 
place,  to  make  it  keep  violent  action  off  the  stage  and  comedy 
distinct  from  tragedy.  But  the  playwrights  appealed  from 
the  critics  to  the  truer  sympathies  of  the  audience,  and  they 
decided  for  feedom  and  action,  rather  than  restraint  and 
recitation.  Hence  our  national  drama  is  of  Shakspere  and 
not  of  Racine.  By  1603  there  were  twelve  play-houses  in 
London  in  full  blast,  although  the  city  then  numbered  only 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  inhabitants. 

Fresh  plays  were  produced  every  year.  The  theater  was  more 
to  the  Englishmen  of  that  time  than  it  has  ever  been  before 
or  since.  It  was  his  club,  his  novel,  his  newspaper,  all  in 
one.  No  great  drama  has  ever  flourished  apart  from  a  living 
stage,  and  it  was  fortunate  that  the  Elizabethan  dramatists 
were,  almost  all  of  them,  actors,  and  familiar  with  stage  effect. 
Even  the  few  exceptions,  like  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  who 
were  young  men  of  good  birth  and  fortune,  and  not  depend- 
ent on  their  pens,  were  probably  intimate  with  the  actors, 
lived  in  a  theatrical  atmosphere,  and  knew  practically  how 
plays  should  be  put  on. 

It  had  now  become  possible  to  earn  a  livelihood  as  an  actor 
and  playwright,  Richard  Burbage  and  Edward  Alleyn,  the 
leading  actors  of  their  generation,  made  large  fortunes. 
Shakspere  himself  made  enough  from  his  share  in  the  profits 
of  the  Globe  to  retire  with  a  competence,  some  seven  years 
before  his  death,  and  purchase  a  handsome  property  in  his 
native  Stratford.  Accordingly,  shortly  after  1580,  a  num- 
ber of  men  of  real  talent  began  to  write  for  the  stage  as  a 
career.     These  were  young  graduates  of    the  universities, 


16  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson". 

Marlowe,  Greene,  Peele,  Kyd,  Lyly,  Lodge,  and  others,  who 
came  up  to  town  and  led  a  bohemian  life  as  actors  and  play- 
wrights. Most  of  them  were  wild  and  dissipated  and  ended 
in  wretchedness.  Peele  died  of  a  disease  brought  on  by  his 
evil  courses ;  Greene,  in  extreme  destitution,  from  a  surfeit 
of  Rhenish  wine  and  pickled  herring,  and  Marlowe  was 
stabbed  in  a  tavern  brawl. 

The  Euphuist  Lyly  produced  eight  plays  between  1584  and 
1601.  They  were  written  for  court  entertainments,  mostly 
in  prose  and  on  mythological  subjects.  They  have  little 
dramatic  power,  but  the  dialogue  is  brisk  and  vivacious,  and 
there  are  several  pretty  songs  in  them.  All  the  characters 
talk  Ephuism.  The  best  of  these  was  Alexander  and  Cam- 
paspe,  the  plot  of  which  is  briefly  as  follows.  Alexander 
has  fallen  in  love  with  his  beautiful  captive,  Campaspe,  and 
employs  the  artist  Apelles  to  paint  her  portrait.  During  the 
sittings  Apelles  becomes  enamored  of  his  subject  and  de- 
clares his  passion,  which  is  returned.  Alexander  discovers 
their  secret,  but  magnanimously  forgives  the  treason  and  joins 
the  lovers'  hands.  The  situation  is  a  good  one,  and  capable 
of  strong  treatment  in  the  hands  of  a  real  dramatist.  But  Lyly 
slips  smoothly  over  the  crisis  of  the  action  and,  in  place  of 
passionate  scenes,  gives  us  clever  discourses  and  soliloquies, 
or,  at  best,  a  light  interchange  of  question  and  answer,  full 
of  conceits,  repartees,  and  double  meanings.     For  example  : 

"Apel.  Whom  do  you  love  best  in  the  world  ? 

"  Camp.  He  that  made  me  last  in  the  world. 

"Apel.  That  was  God. 

"  Camp.  I  had  thought  it  had  been  a  man,"  etc. 

Lyly's  service  to  the  drama  consisted  in  his  introduction 
of  an  easy  and  sparkling  prose  as  the  language  of  high  com- 
edy, and  Shakspere's  indebtedness  to  the  fashion  thus  set  is 
seen  in  such  passages  as  the  wit  combats  between  Benedict 
and  Beatrice  in  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  greatly  superior  as 
they  are  to  any  thing  of  the  kind  in  Lyly. 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  77 

The  most  important  of  the  dramatists  who  were  Shaks- 
pere's  forerunners,  or  early  contemporaries,  was  Christopher 
or — as  he  was  familiarly  called — Kit  Marlowe.  Born  in  the 
same  year  with  Shakspere  (1564),  he  died  in  1593,  at  which 
date  his  great  successor  is  thought  to  have  written  no  orig- 
inal plays,  except  the  Comedy  of  Errors  and  Love's  Labour'' s 
Lost.  Marlowe  first  popularized  blank  verse  as  the  language 
of  tragedy  in  his  Tamburlaine,  written  before  1587,  and  in 
subsequent  plays  he  brought  it  to  a  degree  of  strength  and 
flexibility  which  left  little  for  Shakspere  to  do  but  to  take  it  as 
he  found  it.  Tamburlaine  was  a  crude,  violent  piece,  full  of 
exaggeration  and  bombast,  but  with  passages  here  and  there 
of  splendid  declamation,  justifying  Ben  Jonson's  phrase, 
"  Marlowe's  mighty  line."  Jonson,  however,  ridiculed,  in  his 
Discoveries,  the  "  scenical  strutting  and  furious  vociferation  " 
of  l^Carlowe's  hero;  and  Shakspere  put  a  quotation  from 
Tamburlaine  into  the  mouth  of  his  ranting  Pistol.  Mar- 
lowe's Edward  II.  was  the  most  regularly  constructed  and 
evenly  written  of  his  plays.  It  was  the  best  historical  drama 
on  the  stage  before  Shakspere,  and  not  undeserving  of  the 
comparison  which  it  has  pi'ovoked  with  the  latter's  Richard 
II.  But  the  most  interesting  of  Marlowe's  plays,  to  a 
modern  reader,  is  the  Tragical  History  of  Doctor  Faustv^. 
The  subject  is  the  same  as  in  Goethe's  Faust,  and  Goethe, 
who  knew  the  English  play,  spoke  of  it  as  greatly  planned. 
The  opening  of  Marlowe's  Faustus  is  very  similar  to  Goethe's. 
His  hero,  wearied  with  unprofitable  studies,  and  filled  with 
a  mighty  lust  for  knowledge  and  the  enjoyment  of  life,  sells 
his  soul  to  the  Devil  in  return  for  a  few  years  of  supernat- 
ural power.  The  tragic  irony  of  the  story  might  seem  to 
lie  in  the  frivolous  use  which  Faustus  makes  of  his  dearly 
bought  power,  wasting  it  in  practical  jokes  and  feats  of  leg- 
erdermain;  but  of  this  Marlowe  was  probably  unconscious. 
The  love  story  of  Margaret,  which  is  the  central  point  of 
Goethe's  drama,  is  entirely  wanting  in  Marlowe's,  and  so  is 


78         Fbom  Chaucer  to  Teknyson. 

the  subtle  conception  of  Goethe's  Mephistophiles.  Marlowe's 
handling  of  the  supernatural  is  materialistic  and  downright, 
as  befitted  an  age  which  believed  in  witchcraft.  The  great- 
est part  of  the  English  Faustv^s  is  the  last  scene,  in  which 
the  agony  and  terror  of  suspense  with  which  the  magician 
awaits  the  stroke  of  the  clock  that  signals  his  doom  are  pow- 
erfully drawn. 

0,  lente^  lente  currite,  noctis  equi! 

The  stars  move  still,  time  runs,  the  clock  will  strike.  ... 

0  soul,  be  changed  into  little  water-drops, 

And  fall  into  the  ocean,  ne'er  be  found  1 

Marlowe's  genius  was  passionate  and  irregular.  He  had  no 
humor,  and  the  comic  portions  of  JFhustus  are  scenes  of  low 
buffoonery. 

George  Peele's  masterpiece,  David  and  Bethsabe,  was  also, 
in  many  respects,  a  fine  play,  though  its  beauties  were  poetic 
rather  than  dramatic,  consisting  not  in  the  characterization 
— which  is  feeble — but  in  the  Eastern  luxuriance  of  the  im- 
agery.    There  is  one  noble  chorus — 

0  proud  revolt  of  a  presumptuous  man, 

which  reminds  one  of  passages  in  Milton's  Samson  Agonistes, 
and  occasionally  Peele  rises  to  such  high  -^schylean  au- 
dacities as  this: 

At  him  the  thunder  shall  discharge  his  bolt, 
And  his  fair  spouse,  with  bright  and  fiery  wings. 
Sit  ever  burning  on  his  hateful  bones. 

Robert  Greene  was  a  very  unequal  writer.  His  plays  are 
slovenly  and  careless  in  construction,  and  he  puts  classical 
allusions  into  the  mouths  of  milkmaids  and  serving  boys, 
with  the  grotesque  pedantry  and  want  of  keeping  common 
among  the  playwrights  of  the  early  stage.  He  has,  notwith- 
standing, in  his  comedy  parts,  more  natural  lightness  and 
grace  than  either  Marlowe  or  Peele.  In  his  Friar  Bacon 
and  Friar  Bungay^  there  is  a  fresh  breath,  as  of  the  green 


The  Age  of  Shakspeee.  79 

English  country,  in  such  passages  as  the  description  of  Ox- 
ford, the  scene  at  Harleston  Fair,  and  the  picture  of  the  dairy 
in  the  keeper's  lodge  at  merry  Fressingfield. 

In  all  these  ante-Shaksperian  dramatists  there  was  a  defect 
of  art  proper  to  the  first  comers  in  a  new  literary  departure. 
As  compared  not  only  with  Shakspere,  but  with  later  writers, 
who  had  the  inestimable  advantage  of  his  example,  their 
work  was  full  of  imperfection,  hesitation,  experiment.  Mar- 
lowe was  probably,  in  native  genius,  the  equal  at  least  of 
Fletcher  or  Webster,  but  his  plays,  as  a  whole,  are  certainly 
not  equal  to  theirs.  They  wrote  in  a  more  developed  state 
of  the  art.  But  the  work  of  this  early  school  settled  the 
shape  which  the  English  drama  was  to  take.  It  fixed  the 
practice  and  traditions  of  the  national  theater.  It  decided 
that  the  drama  was  to  deal  with  the  whole  of  4ife,  the  real 
and  the  ideal,  tragedy,  and  comedy,  prose  and  verse,  in  the 
same  play,  without  limitations  of  time,  place,  and  action. 
It  decided  that  the  English  play  was  to  be  an  action,  and 
not  a  dialogue,  bringing  boldly  upon  the  mimic  scene  feasts, 
dances,  processions,  hangings,  riots,  plays  within  plays, 
drunken  revels,  beatings,  battle,  murder,  and  sudden  death. 
It  established  blank  verse,  with  occasional  riming  couplets  at 
the  close  of  a  scene  or  of  a  long  speech,  as  the  language  of 
the  tragedy  and  high  comedy  parts,  and  prose  as  the  language 
of  the  low  comedy  and  "business"  parts.  And  it  intro- 
duced songs,  a  feature  of  which  Shakspere  made  exquisite 
use.  Shakspere,  indeed,  like  all  great  poets,  invented  no 
new  form  of  literature,  but  touched  old  forms  to  finer  pur- 
poses, refining  every  thing,  discarding  nothing.  Even  the 
old  chorus  and  dumb  show  he  employed,  though  sparingly, 
as  also  the  old  jig,  or  comic  song,  which  the  clown  used  to 
give  between  the  acts. 

Of  the  life  of  William  Shakspere,  the  greatest  dramatic 
poet  of  the  world,  so  little  is  known  that  it  has  been  possible 
for  ingenious  persons  to  construct  a  theory — and  support  it 


80         Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

with  some  show  of  reason — that  the  plays  which  pass  under 
his  name  were  really  written  by  Bacon  or  some  one  else. 
There  is  no  danger  of  this  paradox  ever  making  serious  head- 
way, for  the  historical  evidence  that  Shakspere  wrote  Shak- 
spere's  plays,  though  not  overwhelming,  is  sufficient.  But  it 
is  startling  to  think  that  the  greatest  creative  genius  of  his 
day,  or  perhaps  of  all  time,  was  suffered  to  slip  out  of  life  so 
quietly  that  his  title  to  his  own  works  could  even  be  ques- 
tioned only  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  event. 
That  the  single  authorship  of  the  Homeric  poems  should  be 
doubted  is  not  so  strange,  for  Homer  is  almost  prehistoric. 
But  Shakspere  was  a  modern  Englishman,  and  at  the  time  of 
his  death  the  first  English  colony  in  America  was  already 
nine  years  old.  The  important  known  facts  of  his  life  can 
be  told  almost  in  a  sentence.  He  was  born  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon  in  1564,  mar-ried  when  he  was  eighteen,  went  to  Lon- 
don probably  in  1587,  and  became  an  actor,  playwriter,  and 
stockholder  in  the  company  which  owned  the  Blackfriars 
and  the  Globe  theaters.  He  seemingly  prospered,  and  re- 
tired about  1609  to  Stratford,  where  he  lived  in  the  house 
that  he  had  bought  some  years  before,  and  where  he  died  in 
1616.  His  Venus  and  Adonis  was  printed  in  1593,  his  Hape 
of  Zucrece  in  1594,  and  his  Sonnets  in  1609.  So  far  as  is 
known,  only  eighteen  of  the  thirty-seven  plays  generally  at- 
tributed to  Shakspere  were  printed  during  his  life-time.  These 
were  printed  singly,  in  quarto  shape,  and  were  little  more  than 
stage  books,  or  librettos.  The  first  collected  edition  of  his  works 
was  the  so-called  "  First  Folio "  of  1623,  published  by  his 
fellow-actors,  Heming  and  Condell.  No  contemporary  of 
Shakspere  thought  it  worth  while  to  write  a  life  of  the 
stage-player.  There  is  a  number  of  references  to  him  in  the 
literature  of  the  time;  some  generous,  as  in  Ben  Jonson's 
well-known  verses ;  others  singularly  unappreciative,  like 
Webster's  mention,  of  "  the  right  happy  and  copious  industry 
of  Master  Shakspere."    But  all  these  together  do  not  begin 


The  Age  of  Shakspeee.  81 

to  amount  to  the  sum  of  what  was  said  about  Spenser,  or  Sid- 
ney, or  Raleigh,  or  Ben  Jonson.  There  is,  indeed,  nothing  to 
show  that  his  contemporaries  understood  what  a  man  they 
had  among  them  in  the  person  of  "Our  English  Terence, 
Mr.  Will  Shakespeare."  The  age,  for  the  rest,  was  not  a 
self-conscious  one,  nor  greatly  given  to  review  writing  and 
literary  biography.  Nor  is  there  enough  of  self -revelation 
in  Shakspere's  plays  to  aid  the  reader  in  forming  a  notion  of 
the  man.  He  lost  his  identity  completely  in  the  characters 
of  his  plays,  as  it  is  the  duty  of  a  dramatic  writer  to  do.  His 
sonnets  have  been  examined  carefully  in  search  of  internal 
evidence  as  to  his  character  and  life,  but  the  speculations 
founded  upon  them  have  been  more  ingenious  than  con- 
vincing. 

Shakspere  probably  began  by  touching  up  old  plays. 
Henry  VI.  and  the  bloody  tragedy  of  Titvs  Andronicus,  if 
Shakspere's  at  all,  are  doubtless  only  his  revision  of  pieces 
already  on  the  stage.  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  seems  to 
be  an  old  play  worked  over  by  Shakspere  and  some  other 
dramatist,  and  traces  of  another  hand  are  thought  to  be  visi- 
ble in  parts  of  Henry  VIII.,  Pericles,  and  Timon  of  Athens. 
Such  partnerships  were  common  among  the  Elizabethan 
dramatists,  the  most  illustrious  example  being  the  long  asso- 
ciation of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  The  plays  in  the  First 
Folio  were  divided  into  histories,  comedies,  and  tragedies, 
and  it  will  be  convenient  to  notice  them  briefly  in  that  order. 

It  was  a  stirring  time  when  the  young  adventurer  came  to 
London  to  try  his  fortune.  Elizabeth  had  finally  thrown 
down  the  gage  of  battle  to  Catholic  Europe,  by  the 
execution  of  Mary  Stuart,  in  1587.  The  following  year  saw 
the  destruction  of  the  colossal  Armada,  which  Spain  had 
sent  to  revenge  Mary's  death ;  and  hard  upon  these  events 
followed  the  gallant  exploits  of  Grenville,  Essex,  and  Raleigh. 

That  Shakspere  shared  the  exultant  patriotism  of  the 
times,  and  the  sense  of  their  aloofness  from  the  continent  of 


82         From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson, 

Europe,  which  was  now  bom  in  the  breasts  of  Englishmen, 
is  evident  from  many  a  passage  in  his  plays. 

This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  Uttle  world, 

This  precious  stone  set  in  a  silver  sea, 

This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England, 

This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land, 

England,  bound  in  with  the  triumphant  sea  1 

His  English  histories  are  ten  in  number.  Of  these  King 
John  and  Henry  VIII.  are  isolated  plays.  The  others  form 
a  consecutive  series,  in  the  following  order  :  Richard  II. 
the  two  parts  of  Henry  IV.,  Henry  V,  the  three  parts  of 
Henry  VI,  and  Hichard  III.  This  series  may  be  divided 
into  two,  each  forming  a  tetralogy,  or  group  of  four  plays. 
In  the  first  the  subject  is  the  rise  of  the  house  of  Lancaster. 
But  the  power  of  the  Red  Rose  was  founded  in  usurpation. 
In  the  second  group,  accordingly,  comes  the  Nemesis,  in  the 
civil  wars  of  the  Roses,  reaching  their  catastrophe  in  the  down- 
fall of  both  Lancaster  and  York,  and  the  tyranny  of  Glouces- 
ter. The  happy  conclusion  is  finally  reached  in  the  last 
play  of  the  series,  when  this  new  usurper  is  overthrown  in 
turn,  and  Henry  YIL,  the  first  Tudor  sovereign,  ascends  the 
throne  and  restores  the  Lancastrian  inheritance,  purified,  by 
bloody  atonement,  from  the  stain  of  Richard  II. 's  murder. 
These  eight  plays  are,  as  it  were,  the  eight  acts  of  one  great 
drama;  and,  if  such  a  thing  were  possible,  they  should  be 
represented  on  successive  nights,  like  the  parts  of  a  Greek 
trilogy.  In  order  of  composition  the  second  group  came  first. 
Henry  VI.  is  strikingly  inferior  to  the  others.  Hichard  III. 
is  a  good  acting  play,  and  its  popularity  has  been  sustained  by 
a  series  of  great  tragedians,  who  have  taken  the  part  of  the 
king.  But,  in  a  literary  sense,  it  is  unequal  to  Hichard  II., 
or  the  two  parts  of  Henry  IV.  The  latter  is  unquestionably 
Shakspere's  greatest  historical  tragedy,  and  it  contains  his 
master-creation  in  the  region  of  low  comedy,  the  immortal 
Falstaff. 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  83 

The  constructive  art  with  which  Shakspere  shaped  history 
into  drama  is  well  seen  in  comparing  his  King  John  with 
the  two  plays  on  that  subject  which  were  already  on  the 
stage.  These,  like  all  the  other  old  "  Chronicle  histories," 
such  as  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell  and  the  Famous  Victories 
of  Henry  V.,  follow  a  merely  chronological,  or  biographical, 
order,  giving  events  loosely,  as  they  occurred,  without  any 
unity  of  effect,  or  any  reference  to  their  bearing  on  the 
catastrophe.  Shakspere's  order  was  logical.  He  compressed 
and  selected,  disregarding  the  fact  of  history  oftentimes,  in 
favor  of  the  higher  truth  of  fiction;  bringing  together  a 
crime  and  its  punishment  as  cause  and  effect,  even  though 
they  had  no  such  relation  in  the  chronicle,  and  were  sepa- 
rated, perhaps,  by  many  years. 

Shakspere's  first  two  comedies  were  experiments.  Love's 
Labour's  Lost  was  a  play  of  manners,  with  hardly  any  plot. 
It  brought  together  a  number  of  humors^  that  is,  oddities 
and  affectations  of  various  sorts,  and  played  them  off  on  one 
another,  as  Ben  Jonson  afterward  did  in  his  comedies  of 
humor.  Shakspere  never  returned  to  this  type  of  play, 
unless,  perhaps,  in  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  There  the 
story  turned  on  a  single  "  humor,"  Katharine's  bad  temper, 
just  as  the  story  in  Jonson's  Silent  Woman  turned  on 
Morose's  hatred  of  noise.  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  is, 
therefore,  one  of  the  least  Shaksperian  of  Shakspere's  plays; 
a  bourgeois  domestic  comedy,  with  a  very  narrow  interest. 
It  belongs  to  the  school  of  French  comedy,  like  Moliere's 
Malade  Lmaginaire,  not  to  the  romantic  comedy  of  Shakspere 
and  Fletcher. 

The  Comedy  of  Errors  was  an  experiment  of  an  exactly 
opposite  kind.  It  was  a  play  purely  of  incident;  a  farce,  in 
which  the  main  improbability  being  granted,  namely,  that 
the  twin  Antipholi  and  twin  Dromios  are  so  alike  that  they 
cannot  be  distinguished,  all  the  amusing  complications  follow 
naturally  enough.     There  is  little  character-drawing  in  the 


84         From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

plaj.  Any.  two  pairs  of  twins,  in  the  same  predicament, 
would  be  equally  droll.  The  fun  lies  in  the  situation.  This 
was  a  comedy  of  the  Latin  school,  and  resembled  the  Men- 
naechmi  of  Plautus.  Shakspere  never  returned  to  this  type 
of  play,  though  there  is  an  element  of  "  errors  "  in  Midsum- 
mer NighCs  Dream,.  In  the  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  he 
finally  hit  upon  that  species  of  romantic  comedy  which  he 
may  be  said  to  have  invented  or  created  out  of  the  scattered 
materials  at  hand  in  the  works  of  his  predecessors.  In  this 
play,  as  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice,  Midsummer  ^ight^i 
Dream,  Much  Ado  about  ITbthing,  As  You  Like  It,  Twelfth 
Night,  Winter''s  Tale,  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  Measure 
for  Measure,  and  the  Tem,pest,  the  plan  of  construction  is 
as  follows.  There  is  one  main  intrigue  carried  out  by  the 
high  comedy  characters,  and  a  secondary  intrigue,  or  under- 
plot, by  the  low  comedy  characters.  The  former  is  by  no 
means  purely  comic,  but  admits  the  presentation  of  the 
noblest  motives,  the  strongest  passions,  and  the  most  delicate 
graces  of  romantic  poetry.  In  some  of  the  plays  it  has  a 
prevailing  lightness  and  gayety,  as  in  As  You  Like  It  and 
Twelfth  Night.  In  others,  like  Measure  for  Measure,  it  is 
barely  saved  from  becoming  tragedy  by  the  happy  close. 
Shylock  certainly  remains  a  tragic  figure,  even  to  the  end,  and 
a  play  like  Winter* s  Tale,  in  which  the  painful  situation  is  pro- 
longed for  years,  is  only  technically  a  comedy.  Such  dramas, 
indeed,  were  called,  on  many  of  the  title-pages  of  the  time, 
"  tragi-comedies."  The  low  comedy  interlude,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  broadly  comic.  It  was  cunningly  interwoven  with 
the  texture  of  the  play,  sometimes  loosely,  and  by  way  of 
variety  or  relief,  as  in  the  episode  of  Touchstone  and  Audrey, 
in  As  You  Like  It;  sometimes  closely,  as  in  the  case  of  Dog- 
berry and  Verges,  in  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  where  the 
blundering  of  the  watch  is  made  to  bring  about  the  denoue- 
ment of  the  main  action.  The  Merry  Wii)es  of  Windsor  is 
an  exception  to  this  plan  of  construction.     It  is  Shakspere's 


The  Age  of  Shakspere.  85- 

only  play  of  contemporary,  middle-class  English  life,  and^ 
is  written  almost  throughout  in  prose.  It  is  his  only  pure 
comedy,  except  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew, 

Shakspere  did  not  abandon  comedy  when  writing  tragedy,, 
though  he  turned  it  to  a  new  account.  The  two  species- 
graded  into  one  another.  Thus  Cymbeline  is,  in  its  fortun- 
ate ending,  really  as  much  of  a  comedy  as  Winter's  Tale — 
to  which  its  plot  bears  a  resemblance — and  is  only  technical- 
ly a  tragedy  because  it  contains  a  violent  death.  In  some 
of  the  tragedies,  as  in  Macbeth  and  Julius  Ccesar,  the  comedy 
element  is  reduced  to  a  minimum.  But  in  others,  as  Horneo 
and  Juliet,  and  Hamlet,  it  heightens  the  tragic  feeling  by  the 
irony  of  contrast.  Akin  to  this  is  the  use  to  which  Shaks- 
pere put  the  old  Vice,  or  Clown,  of  the  moralities.  The  Fool 
in  Lear,  Touchstone  in  As  You  Like  It,  and  Thersites  in 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  are  a  sort  of  parody  of  the  function  of 
the  Greek  chorus,  commenting  the  action  of  the  drama  with 
scraps  of  bitter,  or  half-crazy,  philosophy,  and  wonderful 
gleams  of  insight  into  the  depths  of  man's  nature. 

The  earliest  of  Shakspere's  tragedies,  unless  Titv^  Andronr- 
iciis  be  his,  was,  doubtless,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  which  is  full 
of  the  passion  and  poetry  of  youth  and  of  first  love.  It  con- 
tains a  large  proportion  of  riming  lines,  which  is  usually  a 
sign  in  Shakspere  of  early  work.  He  dropped  rime  more 
and  more  in  his  later  plays,  and  his  blank  verse  grew  freer 
and  more  varied  in  its  pauses  and  the  number  of  its  feet. 
Rom.eo  and  Juliet  is  also  unique,  among  his  tragedies,  in  this 
respect,  that  the  catastrophe  is  brought  about  by  a  fatality, 
as  in  the  Greek  drama.  It  was  Shakspere's  habit  to  work 
out  his  tragic  conclusions  from  within,  through  character, 
rather  than  through  external  chances.  This  is  true  of  all 
the  great  tragedies  of  his  middle  life,  Hamlet,  Othello,  Lear^ 
Macbeth^  in  every  one  of  which  the  catastrophe  is  involved  in 
the  character  and  actions  of  the  hero.  This  is  so,  in  a  special 
sense,  in  Hamlet,  the  subtlest  of  all  Shakspere's  plays,  and,  if 


86  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

not  his  masterpiece,  at  any  rate  the  one  which  has  most  at- 
tracted and  puzzled  the  greatest  minds.  It  is  observable 
that  in  Shakspere's  comedies  there  is  no  one  central  figure, 
but  that,  in  passing  into  tragedy,  he  intensified  and  con- 
centrated the  attention  upon  a  single  character.  This  difier- 
ence  is  seen  even  in  the  naming  of  the  plays;  the  trage- 
dies always  take  their  titles  from  their  heroes,  the  comedies 
never. 

Somewhat  later,  probably,  than  the  tragedies  already  men- 
tioned were  the  three  Roman  plays,  Julius  Caesar,  Corio- 
lanus,  and  Anthony  and  Cleopatra.  It  is  characteristic  of 
Shakspere  that  he  invented  the  plot  of  none  of  his  plays,  but 
took  material  that  he  found  at  hand.  In  these  Roman  trag- 
edies he  followed  Plutarch  closely,  and  yet,  even  in  so  doing, 
gave,  if  possible,  a  greater  evidence  of  real  creative  power 
than  when  he  borrowed  a  mere  outline  of  a  story  from  some 
Italian  novelist.  It  is  most  instructive  to  compare  Julius 
Ccesar  with  Ben  Jonson's  Catiline  and  Sejanus.  Jonson  was 
careful  not  to  go  beyond  his  text.  In  Catiline  he  translates 
almost  literally  the  whole  of  Cicero's  first  oration  against 
Catiline.  Sejanus  is  a  mosaic  of  passages  from  Tacitus  and 
Suetonius.  There  is  none  of  this  dead  learning  in  Shaks- 
pere's play.  Having  grasped  the  conceptions  of  the  charac- 
ters of  Brutus,  Cassius,  and  Mark  Anthony,  as  Plutarch  gave 
them,  he  pushed  them  out  into  their  consequences  in  every 
word  and  act,  so  independently  of  his  original,  and  yet  so 
harmoniously  with  it,  that  the  reader  knows  that  he  is  read- 
ing history,  and  needs  no  further  warrant  for  it  than  Shaks- 
pere's own.  Timon  of  Athens  is  the  least  agreeable  and 
most  monotonous  of  Shakspere's  undoubted  tragedies,  and 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  said  Coleridge,  is  the  hardest  to  char- 
acterize. The  figures  of  the  old  Homeric  world  fare  but 
hardly  under  the  glaring  light  of  modern  standards  of  morality 
which  Shakspere  turns  upon  them.  Ajax  becomes  a  stupid 
bully,  Ulysses  a  crafty  politician,  and  swift-footed  Achilles 


The  Agb  op  Shakspere.  87 

a  vain  and  sulky  chief  of  faction.  In  losing  their  ideal 
remoteness  the  heroes  of  the  Iliad  lose  their  poetic  quality, 
and  the  lover  of  Homer  experiences  an  unpleasant  disen- 
chantment. 

It  was  customary  in  the  18th  century  to  speak  of  Shaks- 
pere as  a  rude  though  prodigious  genius.  Even  Milton  could 
describe  him  as"  warbling  his  native  wood-notes  wild."  But 
a  truer  criticism,  beginning  in  England  with  Coleridge,  has 
shown  that  he  was  also  a  profound  artist.  It  is  true  that  he 
wrote  for  his  audiences,  and  that  his  art  is  not  every-where 
and  at  all  points  perfect.  But  a  great  artist  will  contrive,  as 
Shakspere  did,  to  reconcile  practical  exigencies,  like  those  of 
the  public  stage,  with  the  finer  requirements  of  his  art. 
Strained  interpretations  have  been  put  upon  this  or  that  item 
in  Shakspere's  plays  ;  and  yet  it  is  generally  true  that  some 
deeper  reason  can  be  assigned  for  his  method  in  a  given  case 
than  that  "the  audience  liked  puns,"  or,  "the  audience  liked 
ghosts."  Compare,  for  example,  his  delicate  management  of 
the  supernatural  with  Marlowe's  procedure  in  Faustus. 
Shakspere's  age  believed  in  witches,  elves,  and  apparitions ; 
and  yet  there  is  always  something  shadowy  or  allegorical  in 
his  use  of  such  machinery.  The  ghost  in  Hamlet  is  merely 
an  embodied  suspicion.  Banquo's  wraith,  which  is  invisible 
to  all  but  Macbeth,  is  the  haunting  of  an  evil  conscience. 
The  witches  in  the  same  play  are  but  the  promptings  of  am- 
bition, thrown  into  a  human  shape,  so  as  to  become  actors  in 
the  drama.  In  the  same  way,  the  fairies  in  Midsummer 
Nighfa  Dream  are  the  personified  caprices  of  the  lovers,  and 
they  are  unseen  by  the  human  characters,  whose  likes  and 
dislikes  they  control,  save  in  the  instance  where  Bottom  is 
"  translated "  (that  is,  becomes  mad)  and  has  sight  of  the 
invisible  world.  So  in  the  Tempest,  Ariel  is  the  spirit  of  the 
air  and  Caliban  of  the  earth,  ministering,  with  more  or  less 
of  unwillingness,  to  man's  necessities. 

Shakspere  is  the  most  universal  of  writers.     He  touches 


88  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

more  men  at  more  points  than  Homer,  or  Dante,  or  Goethe. 
The  deepest  wisdom,  the  sweetest  poetry,  the  widest  range 
of  character,  are  combined  in  his  plays.  He  made  the  En- 
glish language  an  organ  of  expression  unexcelled  in  the  history 
of  literature.  Yet  he  is  not  an  English  poet  simply,  but  a 
world-poet.  Germany  has  made  him  her  own,  and  the  Latin 
races,  though  at  first  hindered  in  a  true  appreciation  of  him 
by  the  canons  of  classical  taste,  have  at  length  learned  to 
know  him.  An  ever-growing  mass  of  Shaksperian  literature, 
in  the  way  of  comment  and  interpretation,  critical,  textual, 
historical,  or  illustrative,  testifies  to  the  durability  and 
growth  of  his  fame.  Above  all,  his  plays  still  keep,  and 
probably  always  will  keep,  the  stage.  It  is  common  to  speak 
of  Shakspere  and  the  other  Elizabethan  dramatists  as  if 
they  stood,  in  some  sense,  on  a  level.  But  in  truth  there 
is  an  almost  measureless  distance  between  him  and  all 
his  contemporaries.  The  rest  shared  with  him  in  the 
mighty  influences  of  the  age.  Their  plays  are  touched  here 
and  there  with  the  power  and  splendor  of  which  they 
were  all  joint  heirs.  But,  as  a  whole,  they  are  obsolete. 
They  live  in  books,  but  not  in  the  hearts  and  on  the  tongues 
of  men. 

The  most  remarkable  of  the  dramatists  contemporary  with 
Shakspere  was  Ben  Jonson,  Avhose  robust  figure  is  in  strik- 
ing contrast  with  the  other's  gracious  impersonality.  Jonson 
was  nine  years  younger  than  Shakspere.  He  was  educated 
at  Westminster  School,  served  as  a  soldier  in  the  low  coun- 
tries, became  an  actor  in  Henslowe's  company,  and  was 
twice  imprisoned — once  for  killing  a  fellow-actor  in  a  duel, 
and  once  for  his  part  in  the  comedy  of  Eastward  Iloe^  which 
gave  offense  to  King  James.  He  lived  down  to  the  time 
of  Charles  I.  (1635),  and  became  the  acknowledged  arbiter 
of  English  letters  and  the  center  of  convivial  wit  com- 
bats at  the  Mermaid,  the  Devil,  and  other  famous  London 
taverns. 


The  Age  op  Shakspere,  89 

What  things  have  we  seen    • 
Done  at  the  Mermaid ;  heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whom  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest, 
And  had  resolved  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Of  his  dull  life.i 

The  inscription  on  his  tomb  in  Westminster  Abbey  is  simply 

0  rare  Ben  Jonson  I 

Jonson's  comedies  were  modeled  upon  the  vetus  comoedia 
oi  Aristophanes,  which  was  satirical  in  purpose,  and  they 
Ijelonged  to  an  entirely  different  school  from  Shakspere's. 
They  were  classical  and  not  romantic,  and  were  pure  come- 
dies, admitting  no  admixture  of  tragic  motives.  There  is 
hardly  one  lovely  or  beautiful  character  in  the  entire  range 
•of  his  dramatic  creations.  They  were  comedies  not  of  char- 
acter, in  the  high  sense  of  the  word,  but  of  manners  or 
liumors.  His  design  was  to  lash  the  follies  and  vices  of  the 
•day,  and  his  dramatis  personce  consisted  for  the  most  part 
of  gulls,  impostors,  fops,  cowards,  swaggering  braggarts, 
and  "Pauls  men."  In  his  first  play,  Every  Man  in  his 
Junior  (acted  in  1598),  in  Every  Man  Out  of  his  Humor, 
Bartholoniew  Fair,  and,  indeed,  in  all  of  his  comedies,  his 
subject  was  the  fashionable  affectations,  the  whims,  oddities, 
and  eccentric  developments  of  London  life.  His  procedure 
was  to  bring  together  a  number  of  these  fantastic  humorists, 
and  "  squeeze  out  the  humor  of  such  spongy  souls,"  by  play- 
ing them  off  upon  each  other,  involving  them  in  all  manner 
•of  comical  misadventures,  and  rendering  them  utterly  ridicu- 
lous and  contemptiblov  There  was  thus  a  perishable  element 
in  his  art,  for  manners  change ;  and,  however  effective  this 
exposure  of  contemporary  affectations  may  have  been  before 
an  audience  of  Jonson's  day,  it  is  as  hard  for  a  modern  reader 
to  detect  his  points  as  it  will  be  for  a  reader  two  hundred 
*  Francis  Beaumont.     Letter  to  Ben  J'onson. 


90  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tenkyson. 

years  hence  to  understand  the  satire  upon  the  aesthetic  craze 
in  such  pieces  of  the  present  day  as  Patience,  or  the  Colonel. 
Nevertheless,  a  patient  reader,  with  the  help  of  copious  foot- 
notes, can  gradually  put  together  for  himself  an  image  of 
that  world  of  obsolete  humors  in  which  Jonson's  comedy 
dwells,  and  can  admire  the  dramatist's  solid  good  sense,  his 
great  learning,  his  skill  in  construction,  and  the  astonishing 
fertility  of  his  invention.  His  characters  are  not  revealed 
from  within,  like  Shakspere's,  but  built  up  painfully  from 
outside  by  a  succession  of  minute,  laborious  particulars. 
The  difference  will  be  plainly  manifest  if  such  a  character 
as  Slender,  in  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  be  compared 
with  any  one  of  the  inexhaustible  variety  of  idiots  in  Jon- 
son's plays  ;  with  Master  Stephen,  for  example,  in  Every 
Man  in  his  Humor ;  or,  if  Falstaff  be  put  side  by  side  with 
Captain  Bobadil,  in  the  same  comedy,  perhaps  Jonson's  mas- 
terpiece in  the  way  of  comic  caricature.  CynthicHs  Revels 
was  a  satire  on  the  courtiers  and  the  Poetaster  on  Jonson's 
literary  enemies.  The  Alchemist  was  an  exposure  of  quack- 
ery, and  is  one  of  his  best  comedies,  but  somewhat  over- 
weighted with  learning.  Vblpone  is  the  most  powerful  of 
all  his  dramas,  but  is  a  harsh  and  disagreeable  piece  ;  and 
the  state  of  society  which  it  depicts  is  too  revolting  for 
comedy.  The  Silent  Woman  is,  perhaps,  the  easiest  of  all 
Jonson's  plays  for  a  modern  reader  to  follow  and  appreciate. 
There  is  a  distinct  plot  to  it,  the  situation  is  extremely  ludi- 
crous, and  the  emphasis  is  laid  upon  a  single  humor  or  eccen- 
tricity, as  in  some  of  Moli^re's  lighter  comedies,  like  Ij€ 
Malacle  Jmayinaire,  or  Xe  Medecin  malgre  lui. 

In  spite  of  his  heaviness  in  drama,  Jonson  had  a  light 
enough  touch  in  lyric  poetry.  His  songs  have  not  the  care- 
less sweetness  of  Shakspere's,  but  they  have  a  grace  of  their 
own.  Such  pieces  as  his  Lovers  Triumph,  Hymn  to  Diana, 
the  adaptation  from  Philostratus, 

Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes, 


The  Age  of  Shakspbee.  91 

and  many  others  entitle  their  author  to  rank  among  the  first 
of  English  lyrists.  Some  of  these  occur  in  his  two  collec- 
tions of  miscellaneous  verse,  the  Forest  and  Underwoods; 
others  in  the  numerous  masques  which  he  composed.  These 
were  a  species  of  entertainment,  very  popular  at  the  court  of 
James  I.,  combining  dialogue  with  music,  intricate  dances, 
and  costly  scenery.  Jonson  left  an  unfinished  pastoral  drama, 
the  Sad  ShepTierd,  which  contains  passages  of  great  beauty ; 
one,  especially,  descriptive  of  the  shepherdess 

Earine, 
Who  had  her  very  being  and  her  name 
With  the  first  buds  and  breathings  of  the  spring, 
Born  with  the  primrose  and  the  violet 
And  earliest  roses  blown. 


1.  A  History  of  Elizabethan  Literature.  George  Saintsbury. 
London:  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1877. 

2.  Palgrave's  Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics.  Lon- 
don:    Macmillan  &  Co.,  1877. 

3.  The  Courtly  Poets  from  Raleigh  to  Montrose.     Edited 
by  J.  Hannah.    London:  Bell  &  Daldy,  1870. 

4.  The  Countess  of  Pembroke's  Arcadia.    London  :  Samp- 
son Low,  Son  &  Marston,  1867. 

5.  Bacon's  Essays.     Edited  by  W.  Aldis  "Wright.     Mac- 
millan &  Co.  (Golden  Treasury  Series.) 

6.  The  Cambridge  Shakspere.     (Clark  &  Wright.) 

7.  Charles  Lamb's  Specimens  of  English  Dramatic  Poets. 

8.  Ben   Jonson's  Volpone  and   Silent   Woman.  Cunning- 
ham's Edition.     London :  J.  C.  Hotten,  (3  vols.) 


"92  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  AGE  OF  MILTON. 
1608-1674. 

The  Elizabethan  age  proper  closed  with  the  death  of  the 
•queen,  and  the  accession  of  James  I.,  in  1603,  but  the  litera- 
ture of  the  fifty  years  following  was  quite  as  rich  as  that  of 
the  half -century  that  had  passed  since  she  came  to  the  throne, 
in  1557.  The  same  qualities  of  thought  and  style  which  had 
marked  the  writers  of  her  reign  prolonged  themselves  in 
their  successors,  through  the  reigns  of  the  first  two  Stuart 
kings  and  the  Commonwealth.  Yet  there  was  a  change  in 
:spirit.  Literature  is  only  one  of  the  many  forms  in  which 
the  national  mind  expresses  itself.  In  periods  of  political 
revolution,  literature,  leaving  the  serene  air  of  fine  art,  par- 
takes the  violent  agitation  of  the  times.  There  were  seeds 
-of  civil  and  religious  discord  in  Elizabethan  England.  As 
between  the  two  parties  in  the  Church  there  was  a  compro- 
mise and  a  truce  rather  than  a  final  settlement.  The  Angli- 
can doctrine  was  partly  Calvinistic  and  partly  Arminian. 
The  form  of  government  was  Episcopal,  but  there  was  a  large 
body  of  Presbyterians  in  the  Church  who  desired  a  change. 
In  the  ritual  and  ceremonies  many  "  rags  of  popery "  had 
l)een  retained,  which  the  extreme  reformers  wished  to  tear 
Away.  But  Elizabeth  was  a  worldly-minded  woman,  impa- 
tient of  theological  disputes.  Though  circumstances  had 
made  her  the  champion  of  Protestantism  in  Europe  she  kept 
many  Catholic  notions;  disapproved,  for  example,  of  the 
marriage  of  priests,  and  hated  sermons.  She  was  jealous 
-of  her  prerogative  in  the  State,  and  in  the  Church  she  en- 
forced uniformity.     The  authors  of  the  Marthx  Marprelate 


The  Age  of  Miltojt.  93 

pamphlets  against  the  bishops  were  punished  by  death  or 
imprisonment.  While  the  queen  lived  things  were  kept  well 
together  and  England  was  at  one  in  face  of  the  common  foe. 
Admiral  Howard,  Avho  commanded  the  English  naval  forces 
against  the  Armada,  was  a  Catholic. 

But  during  the  reign  of  James  I.  (1603-1625)  and  Charles 
I.  (1625-1649)  Puritanism  grew  stronger  through  repression. 
"  England,"  says  the  historian  Green,  "  became  the  people  of 
a  book,  and  that  book  the  Bible."  The  power  of  the  king 
was  used  to  impose  the  power  of  the  bishops  upon  the  En- 
glish and  Scotch  Churches  until  religious  discontent  be- 
came also  political  discontent,  and  finally  overthrew  the 
throne.  The  writers  of  this  period  divided  more  and  more 
into  two  hostile  camps.  On  the  side  of  Church  and  king 
was  the  bulk  of  the  learning  and  genius  of  the  time.  But 
on  the  side  of  free  religion  and  the  Parliament  were  the 
stern  conviction,  the  fiery  zeal,  the  exalted  imagination  of 
English  Puritanism.  The  spokesman  of  this  movement 
was  Milton,  whose  great  figure  dominates  the  literary  his- 
tory of  his  generation,  as  Shakspere  does  of  the  generation 
preceding. 

The  drama  went  on  in  the  course  marked  out  for  it  by 
Shakspere's  example  until  the  theaters  were  closed  by  Par- 
liament, in  1642.  Of  the  Stuart  dramatists  the  most  im- 
portant were  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  all  of  whose  plays 
were  produced  during  the  reign  of  James  I.  These  were 
fifty-three  in  number,  but  only  thirteen  of  them  were  joint 
productions.  Francis  Beaumont  was  twenty  years  younger 
than  Shakspere,  and  died  a  few  years  before  him.  He  was 
the  son  of  a  judge  of  the  Common  Pleas.  His  collaborator, 
John  Fletcher,  a  son  of  the  bishop  of  London,  was  five  yeai's 
older  than  Beaumont,  and  survived  him  nine  years.  He  was 
much  the  more  prolific  of  the  two  and  wrote  alone  some  forty 
plays.  Although  the  life  of  one  of  these  pai-tners  was  con- 
terminous with  Shakspere's,  their  works  exhibit  a  later  phase 


94         Fkom  Chaucer  to  Tenktson. 

of  the  dramatic  art.  The  Stuart  dramatists  followed  tlie  lead 
of  Shakspere  rather  than  of  Ben  Jonson.  Their  plays,  like 
the  former's,  belong  to  the  romantic  drama.  They  present 
a  poetic  and  idealized  version  of  life,  deal  with  the  highest 
passions  and  the  wildest  buffoonery,  and  introduce  a  great 
variety  of  those  daring  situations  and  incidents  which  we 
agree  to  call  romantic.  But,  while  Shakspere  seldom  or 
never  overstepped  the  modesty  of  nature,  his  successors  ran 
into  every  license.  They  sought  to  stimulate  the  jaded 
appetite  of  their  audience  by  exhibiting  monstrosities  of 
character,  unnatural  lusts,  subtleties  of  crime,  virtues  and 
vices  both  in  excess. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  plays  are  much  easier  and  more 
agreeable  reading  than  Ben  Jonson's.  Though  often  loose 
in  their  plots  and  without  that  consistency  in  the  develop- 
ment of  their  characters  which  distinguished  Jonson's  more 
conscientious  workmanship,  they  are  full  of  graceful  dialogue 
and  beautiful  poetry.  Dryden  said  that  after  the  Restora- 
tion two  of  their  plays  were  acted  for  one  of  Shakspere's 
or  Jonson's  throughout  the  year,  and  he  added  that  they 
"understood  and  imitated  the  conversation  of  gentlemen 
much  better,  whose  wild  debaucheries  and  quickness  of  wit 
in  repartees  no  poet  can  ever  paint  as  they  have  done." 
Wild  debauchery  was  certainly  not  the  mark  of  a  gentleman 
in  Shakspere,  nor  was  it  altogether  so  in  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher.  Their  gentlemen  are  gallant  and  passionate  lovers, 
gay  cavaliers,  generous,  courageous,  courteous — according 
to  the  fashion  of  their  times — and  sensitive  on  the  point  of 
honor.  They  are  far  superior  to  the  cold-blooded  rakes  of 
Dryden  and  the  Restoration  comedy.  Still  the  manners  and 
language  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  plays  are  extremely 
licentious,  and  it  is  not  hard  to  sympathize  with  the  objec- 
tions to  the  theater  expressed  by  the  Puritan  writer,  William 
Prynne,  who,  after  denouncing  the  long  hair  of  the  cavaliers 
in  his  tract,    The  Unloveliness  of  Lovelocks^  attacked  the 


The  Age  of  Miltox.  95 

stage,  in  1633,  with  Histrio-mastvx :  the  Player's  Scourge ,' 
an  offense  for  which  he  was  fined,  imprisoned,  pilloried,  and 
had  his  ears  cropped.  Coleridge  said  that  Shakspere  was 
coarse,  but  never  gross.  He  had  the  healthy  coarseness  of 
nature  herself.  But  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  pages  are  cor- 
rupt. Even  their  chaste  women  are  immodest  in  language 
and  thought.  They  use  not  merely  that  frankness  of  speech 
which  was  a  fashion  of  the  times,  but  a  profusion  of  obscene 
imagery  which  could  not  proceed  from  a  pure  mind. 
Chastity  with  them  is  rather  a  bodily  accident  than  a  virtue 
of  the  heart,  says  Coleridge. 

Among  the  best  of  their  light  comedies  are  The  Chances, 
The  Scornful  Lady^  The  Spanish  Curate,  and  Jlide  a  Wife 
and  Have  a  Wife.  But  far  superior  to  these  are  their 
tragedies  and  tragi-comedies.  The  Maid's  Tragedy,  Philaster, 
A  King  and  No  King — all  written  jointly — and  ITalen- 
tinian  and  Thierry  and  Theodoret,  written  by  Fletcher 
alone,  but  perhaps,  in  part,  sketched  out  by  Beaumont. 
The  tragic  masterpiece  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  is  The 
Maid's  Tragedy,  a  powerful  but  repulsive  play,  which  sheds 
a  singular  light  not  only  upon  its  authors'  dramatic  methods, 
but  also  upon  the  attitude  toward  royalty  favored  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  which  grew  up  under 
the  Stuarts.  The  heroine,  Evadne,  has  been  in  secret  a  mis- 
tress of  the  king,  who  marries  her  to  Amintor,  a  gentleman 
of  his  court,  because,  as  she  explains  to  her  bridegroom,  on 
the  wedding  night, 

I  must  have  one 

To  father  children,  and  to  bear  the  name 

Of  husband  to  me,  that  my  sin  may  be 

More  honorable. 

This  scene  is,  perhaps,  the  most  affecting  and  impressive 
in  the  whole  range  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  drama.  Yet 
when  Evadne  names  the  king  as  her  paramour,  Amintor 
exclaims  : 


96  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

0  thou  hast  named  a  word  that  wipes  away 
All  thoughts  revengeful.     In  that  sacred  name 
"  The  king  "  there  hes  a  terror.     "What  frail  man 
Dares  lift  his  hand  against  it  ?     Let  the  gods 
Speak  to  him  when  they  please  ;  till  when,  let  us 
Suffer  and  wait. 

And  the  play  ends  with  the  words 

On  lustful  kings, 
Unlooked-for  sudden  deaths  from  heaven  are  sent, 
But  cursed  is  he  that  is  their  instrument. 

Aspatia,  in  this  tragedy,  is  a  good  instance  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher's  pathetic  characters.  She  is  troth-plight  wife  to 
Amintor,  and  after  he,  by  the  king's  command,  has  forsaken 
her  for  Evadne,  she  disguises  herself  as  a  man,  provokes  her 
unfaithful  lover  to  a  duel,  and  dies  under  his  sword,  blessing 
the  hand  that  killed  her.  This  is  a  common  type  in  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher,  and  was  drawn  originally  from  Shaks- 
pere's  Ophelia.  All  their  good  women  have  the  instinctive 
fidelity  of  a  dog,  and  a  superhuman  patience  and  devotion, 
a  "gentle  forlornness  "  under  wrongs,  which  is  painted  with 
an  almost  feminine  tenderness.  In  Philaster,  or  Love  Lies 
Bleeding,  Euphrasia,  conceiving  a  hopeless  passion  for 
Philaster — who  is  in  love  with  Arethusa — puts  on  the  dress 
of  a  page  and  enters  his  service.  He  employs  her  to  carry 
messages  to  his  lady-love,  just  as  Viola,  in  Ticelfth  Night,  is 
sent  by  the  duke  to  Olivia.  Philaster  is  persuaded  by 
slanderers  that  his  page  and  his  lady  have  been  unfaithful  to 
him,  and  in  his  jealous  fury  he  wounds  Euphrasia  with  bis 
Bword.  Afterward,  convinced  of  the  boy's  fidelity,  he  asks 
forgiveness,  whereto  Euphrasia  replies, 

Alas,  my  lord,  my  life  is  not  a  thing 
"Worthy  your  noble  thoughts.     'Tis  not  a  life, 
'Tis  but  a  piece  of  childhood  thrown  away. 

Beaumont   and   Fletcher's   love-lorn   maids    wear    the  wil- 
low very  sweetly,  but  in  all  their  piteous  passages  there  is 


The  Age  of  Miltox.  97 

nothing  equal  to  the  natural  pathos — the  pathos  which  arises 
from  the  deep  springs  of  character — of  that  one  brief  ques- 
tion and  answer  in  King  Lear. 

Lear.       So  young  and  so  untender? 

Cordelia.  So  young,  my  lord,  and  true. 

The  disguise  of  a  woman  in  man's  apparel  is  a  common 
incident,  in  the  romantic  drama  ;  and  the  fact  that  on  the 
Elizabethan  stage  the  female  parts  were  taken  by  boys  made 
the  deception  easier.  Viola's  situation  in  Ticelfth  Night  is 
precisely  similiar  to  Euphrasia's,  but  there  is  a  difference  in 
the  handling  of  the  device  which  is  characteristic  of  a  dis- 
tinction between  Shakspere's  art  and  that  of  his  contempo- 
raries. The  audience  in  Twelfth  Night  is  taken  into 
confidence  and  made  aware  of  Viola's  real  nature  from  the 
start,  Avhile  Euphrasia's  incognito  is  preserved  till  the  fifth 
act,  and  then  disclosed  by  an  accident.  This  kind  of  mysti- 
•fication  and  surprise  was  a  trick  below  Shakspere.  In  this 
instance,  moreover,  it  involved  a  departure  from  dramatic 
probability.  Euphrasia  could,  at  any  moment,  by  revealing 
her  identity,  have  averted  the  greatest  sufferings  and  dan- 
gers from  Philaster,  Arethusa,  and  herself,  and  the  only 
motive  for  her  keeping  silence  is  represented  to  have  been  a 
feeling  of  maidenly  shame  at  her  position.  Such  strained 
and  fantastic  motives  are  too  often  made  the  pivot  of  the 
action  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  tragi-comedies.  Their 
characters  have  not  the  depth  and  truth  of  Shakspere's,  nor 
are  they  drawn  so  sharply.  One  reads  their  plays  with 
pleasure,  and  remembers  here  and  there  a  passage  of  fine 
poetry,  or  a  noble  or  lovely  trait,  but  their  characters,  as 
wholes,  leave  a  fading  impression.  Who,  even  after  a  single 
reading  or  representation,  ever  forgets  Falstaff,  or  Shylock, 
or  King  Lear  ? 

The  moral  inferiority  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  is  well 
seen  in  such  a  play  as  A  King  and  No  King.     Here  Arbaces 


98  Fkom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

falls  in  love  with  his  sister,  and,  after  a  furious  conflict  in 
his  own  mind,  finally  succumbs  to  his  guilty  passion.  He  is 
rescued  from  the  consequences  of  his  weakness  by  the  dis- 
covery that  Panthea  is  not,  in  fact,  his  sister.  But  this  is  to 
cut  the  knot  and  not  to  untie  it.  It  leaves  the  denouement 
to  chance,  and  not  to  those  moral  forces  through  which 
Shakspere  always  wrought  his  conclusions.  Arbaces  has 
failed,  and  the  piece  of  luck  which  keeps  his  failure  innocent 
is  rejected  by  every  right-feeling  spectator.  In  one  of  John 
Ford's  tragedies  the  situation  which  in  A  King  and  N^o  King 
is  only  apparent  becomes  real,  and  incest  is  boldly  made  the 
subject  of  the  play.  Ford  pushed  the  morbid  and  unnatural 
in  character  and  passion  into  even  wilder  extremes  than 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  His  best  play,  the  Broken  Heart, 
is  a  pi'olonged  and  unrelieved  torture  of  the  feelings. 

Fletcher's  Faithful  Shepherdess  is  the  best  English  pas- 
toral drama  with  the  exception  of  Jonson's  fragment,  the 
Sad  Shepherd.  Its  choral  songs  are  richly  and  sweetly 
modulated,  and  the  influence  of  the  whole  poem  upon  Milton 
is  very  apparent  in  his  Comus.  The  Knight  of  the  Burning 
Pestle,  written  by  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  jointly,  was  the 
first  burlesque  comedy  in  the  language,  and  is  excellent 
fooling.  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  blank  verse  is  musical, 
but  less  masculine  than  Marlowe's  or  Shakspere's,  by  reason 
of  their  excessive  use  of  extra  syllables  and  feminine 
endings. 

In  John  Webster  the  fondness  for  abnormal  and  sensa- 
tional themes,  which  beset  the  Stuart  stage,  showed  itself  in 
the  exaggeration  of  the  terrible  into  the  horrible.  Fear,  in 
Shakspere — as  in  the  great  murder  scene  in  Macbeth — is 
a  pure  passion  ;  but  in  Webster  it  is  mingled  with  something 
physically  repulsive.  Thus  his  I>uchess  of  Malfl  is  presented 
in  the  dark  with  a  dead  man's  hand,  and  is  told  that  it  is  the 
hand  of  her  murdered  husband.  She  is  shown  a  dance  of 
mad-men  and,  "behind  a  traverse,  the  artificial  figures  of  her 


The  Age  op  Milton.  99 

children,  appearing  as  if  dead."  Treated  in  this  elaborate 
fashion,  that  "  terror,"  which  Aristotle  said  it  was  one  of  the 
objects  of  tragedy  to  move,  loses  half  its  dignity.  Webster's 
images  have  the  smell  of  the  charnel  house  about  them: 

She  would  not  after  the  report  keep  fresh 
As  long  as  flowers  on  graves. 

•     "We  are  only  like  dead  walls  or  vaulted  graves, 
That,  ruined,  yield  no  echo. 

0  this  gloomy  world  1 
In  what  a  shadow  or  deep  pit  of  darkness 
V  Doth  womanish  and  fearful  mankind  live  1 

Webster  had  an  intense  and  somber  genius.*  In  diction  he 
was  the  most  Shaksperian  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatists,  and 
there  are  sudden  gleams  of  beauty  among  his  dark  horrors 
which  light  up  a  whole  scene  with  some  abrupt  touch  of 
feeling. 

Cover  her  face :  mine  eyes  dazzle :  she  died  young, 

says  the  brother  of  the  Duchess,  when  he  has  procured  her 
murder  and  stands  before  the  corpse.  Vittoria  Corombona 
is  described  in  the  old  editions  as  "  a  night-piece,"  and  it 
should,  indeed,  be  acted  by  the  shuddering  light  of  torches, 
and  with  the  cry  of  the  screech-owl  to  punctuate  the  speeches. 
The  scene  of  Webster's  two  best  tragedies  was  laid,  like 
many  of  Ford's,  Cyril  Toumeur's,  and  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's,  in  Italy — the  wicked  and  splendid  Italy  of  the 
Renaissance,  which  had  such  a  fascination  for  the  Eliza- 
bethan imagination.  It  was  to  them  the  land  of  the  Borgias 
and  the  Cenci ;  of  families  of  proud  nobles,  luxurious,  culti- 
vated, but  full  of  revenge  and  ferocious  cunning  ;  subtle 
poisoners,  who  killed  with  a  perfumed  glove  or  fan;  parri- 
cides, atheists,  committers  of  unnamable  crimes,  and  inventors 
of  strange  and  delicate  varieties  of  sin. 

But  a  very  few  have  here  been  mentioned  of  the  great 
host  of  dramatists  who  kept  the  theaters  busy  through  the 


100  From  Chaucer  to  Teknyson. 

reigns  of  Elizabeth,  James  I.,  and  Charles  I.  The  last  of 
the  race  was  James  Shirley,  who  died  in  1666,  and  whose 
thirty-eight  plays  were  written  during  the  reign  of  Charles 
I.  and  the  Commonwealth. 

In  the  miscellaneous  prose  and  poetry  of  this  period 
there  is  lacking  the  free,  exulting,  creative  impulse  of  the 
elder  generation,  but  there  are  a  soberer  feeling  and  a 
certain  scholarly  choiceness  which  commend  themselves  to 
readers  of  bookish  tastes.  Even  that  quaintness  of  thought 
which  is  a  mark  of  the  Commonwealth  writers  is  not  with- 
out its  attraction  for  a  nice  literary  palate.  Prose  became 
now  of  greater  relative  importance  than  ever  before.  Al- 
most every  distinguished  writer  lent  his  pen  to  one  or  the 
other  party  in  the  great  theological  and  political  controversy 
of  the  time.  There  were  famous  theologians,  like  Hales, 
Chillingworth,  and  Baxter  ;  historians  and  antiquaries,  like 
Selden,  Knolles,  and  Cotton  ;  philosophers,  such  as  Hobbes^ 
Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  and  More,  the  Platonist;  and 
writers  in  natural  science — which  now  entered  upon  its  mod- 
ern, experimental  phase,  under  the  stimulus  of  Bacon's  writ- 
ings— among  whom  may  be  mentioned  Wallis,  the  mathe- 
matician ;  Boyle,  the  chemist ;  and  Harvey,  the  discoverer 
of  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  These  are  outside  of  our 
subject,  but  in  the  strictly  literary  prose  of  the  time,  the 
same  spirit  of  roused  inquiry  is  manifest,  and  the  same  dis- 
position to  a  thorough  and  exhausive  treatment  of  a  sub- 
ject, which  is  i^roper  to  the  scientific  attitude  of  mind.  The 
line  between  true  and  false  science,  however,  had  not  yet 
been  drawn.  The  age  was  pedantic,  and  appealed  too  much 
to  the  authority  of  antiquity.  Hence  we  have  such  monu- 
ments of  perverse  and  curious  erudition  as  Robert  Burton's 
Ajiatomy  of  Melancholy y  1621;  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne's 
Pseudodoxia  Epideniica,  or  Inquiries  into  Vidgar  and  Com- 
mon Errors,  1646.  The  former  of  these  was  the  work  of  an 
Oxford  scholar,  an  astrologer,  who  cast  his  own  horoscope. 


The  Age  of  Milton.  101 

and  a  victim  himself  of  the  atrabilious  humor,  from  which 
he  sought  relief  in  listening  to  the  ribaldry  of  bargemen, 
and  in  compiling  this  Anatomy^  in  which  the  causes,  symp- 
toms, prognostics,  and  cures  of  melancholy  are  considered 
in  numerous  partitions,  sections,  members,  and  subsections. 
The  work  is  a  mosaic  of  quotations.  All  literature  is  ran- 
sacked for  anecdotes  and  instances,  and  the  book  has  thus 
become  a  mine  of  out-of-the-way  learning  in  which  later 
writers  have  dug.  Lawrence  Sterne  helped  himself  freely 
to  Burton's  treasures,  and  Dr.  Johnson  said  that  the  Anat- 
omy was  the  only  book  that  ever  took  him  out  of  bed  two 
hours  sooner  than  he  wished  to  rise. 

The  vulgar  and  common  errors  which  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
set  himself  to  refute  were  such  as  these:  That  dolphins 
are  crooked,  that  Jews  stink,  that  a  man  hath  one  rib  less 
than  a  woman,  that  Xerxes's  army  drank  up  rivers,  that 
cicades  are  bred  out  of  cuckoo-spittle,  that  Hannibal  split 
Alps  with  vinegar,  together  with  many  similar  fallacies 
touching  Pope  Joan,  the  Wandering  Jew,  the  decuman  or 
tenth  wave,  the  blackness  of  negroes,  Friar  Bacon's  brazen 
head,  etc.  Another  book  in  which  great  learning  and  inge- 
nuity were  applied  to  trifling  ends  was  the  same  author's 
Garden  of  Cyrus ;  or,  the  Quincuncial  Lozenge  or  Network 
Plantations  of  tlie  Ancients^  in  which  a  mystical  meaning 
is  sought  in  the  occuiTence  throughout  nature  and  art  of  the 
figure  of  the  quincunx  or  lozenge.  Browne  was  a  physician 
of  Norwich,  where  his  library,  museum,  aviary,  and  botanic 
garden  were  thought  worthy  of  a  special  visit  by  the  Royal 
Society,  He  was  an  antiquary  and  a  naturalist,  and  deeply 
read  in  the  school-men  and  the  Christian  Fathers.  He  was 
a  mystic,  and  a  writer  of  a  rich  and  peculiar  imagination, 
whose  thoughts  have  impressed  themselves  upon  many  kin- 
dred minds,  like  Coleridge,  De  Quincey,  and  Emerson.  Two 
of  his  books  belong  to  literature,  Beligio  Jfedici,  published 
in  1642,  a,nd  Ifydriotaphia;  or,  Urn  Burial,  1658,  a  discourse 


102  From  Chatjceb  to  Tennyson. 

upon  rites  of  burial  and  incremation,  suggested  by  some 
Roman  funeral  urns  dug  up  in  Norfolk.  Browne's  style, 
though  too  highly  latinized,  is  a  good  example  of  Common- 
wealth prose;  that  stately,  cumbrous,  brocaded  prose  which 
had  something  of  the  flow  and  measure  of  verse,  rather 
than  the  quicker,  colloquial  movement  of  modern  writing. 
Browne  stood  aloof  from  the  disputes  of  his  time,  and  in 
his  very  subjects  there  is  a  calm  and  meditative  remoteness 
from  the  daily  interests  of  men.  His  Jtdigio  Medici  is  full 
of  a  wise  tolerance  and  a  singular  elevation  of  feeling. 
"  At  the  sight  of  a  cross,  or  crucifix,  I  can  dispense  with 
my  hat,  but  scarce  with  the  thought  or  memory  of  ray  Sav- 
iour," "  They  only  had  the  advantage  of  a  bold  and  noble 
faith  who  lived  before  his  coming."  "  They  go  the  fairest 
way  to  heaven  that  would  serve  God  without  a  hell."  "All 
things  are  artificial,  for  nature  is  the  art  of  God."  The  last 
chapter  of  the  Urn  Burial  is  an  almost  rhythmical  descant 
on  mortality  and  oblivion.  The  style  kindles  slowly  into  a 
somber  eloquence.  It  is  the  most  impressive  and  extraor- 
dinary passage  in  the  prose  literature  of  the  time.  Browne, 
like  Hamlet,  loved  to  "  consider  too  curiously."  His  sub- 
tlety led  him  to  "  pose  his  apprehension  with  those  involved 
enigmas  and  riddles  of  the  Trinity — with  incarnation  and 
resurrection  ; "  and  to  start  odd  inquiries :  "  what  song  the 
Syrens  sang,  or  what  name  Achilles  assumed  when  he  hid 
himself  among  women  ; "  or  whether,  after  Lazarus  was 
raised  from  the  dead,  "his  heir  might  lawfully  detain  his 
inheritance."  The  quaintness  of  his  phrase  appears  at  every 
turn.  "  Charles  the  Fifth  can  never  hope  to  live  within  two 
Methuselahs  of  Hector."  "  Generations  pass  while  some 
trees  stand,  and  old  families  survive  not  three  oaks." 
"  Mummy  is  become  merchandise  ;  Mizraim  cures  wounds, 
and  Pharaoh  is  sold  for  balsams." 

One  of  the  pleasantest  of  old  English  humorists  is  Thomas 
Fuller,  who  was  a  chaplain  in  the  royal  army  during  the  civil 


The  Age  of  Miltox.  103 

war,  and  wrote,  among  other  things,  a  Church  ITistory  of 
Britain;  a  book  of  religious  meditations,  Good  Thoughts  in 
Bad  Times  ;  and  a  "  character  "  book.  The  Holy  and  I*ro- 
fane  State.  His  most  important  work,  the  Worthies  of 
England^  was  published  in  1662,  the  year,  after  his  death. 
This  was  a  description  of  every  English  county  ;  its  natural 
commodities,  manufactures,  wonders,  proverbs,  etc.,  with 
brief  biographies  of  its  memorable  persons.  Fuller  had  a 
well-stored  memory,  sound  piety,  and  excellent  common 
sense.  Wit  was  his  leading  intellectual  trait,  and  the 
quaintness  which  he  shared  with  his  contemporaries  appears 
in  his  writings  in  a  fondness  for  puns,  droll  turns  of  expres- 
sion and  bits  of  eccentric  suggestion.  His  prose,  unlike 
Browne's,  Milton's,  and  Jeremy  Taylor's,  is  brief,  simple, 
and  pithy.  His  dry  vein  of  humor  was  imitated  by  the 
American  Cotton  Mather,  in  his  Magnolia,  and  by  many  of 
the  English  and  New  England  divines  of  the  17th  century. 

Jeremy  Taylor  was  also  a  chaplain  in  the  king's  army,  was 
several  times  imprisoned  for  his  opinions,  and  was  afterward 
made,  by  Charles  II.,  bishop  of  Down  and  Connor.  He  is 
a  devotional  rather  than  a  theological  writer,  and  his  Holy 
Living  and  Holy  Dying  are  religious  classics.  Taylor,  like 
Sidney  was  a  "warbler  of  poetic  prose."  He  has  been 
called  the  prose  Spenser,  and  his  English  has  the  opulence, 
the  gentle  elaboration,  the  "linked  sweetness  long  drawn 
out "  of  the  poet  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  In  fullness  and  reso- 
nance Taylor's  diction  resembles  that  of  the  great  orators, 
though  it  lacks  their  nervous  energy.  His  pathos  is  exquisitely 
tender,  and  his  numerous  similes  have  Spenser's  pictorial  am- 
plitude. Some  of  them  have  become  commonplaces  for  ad- 
miration, notably  his  description  of  the  flight  of  the  skylark, 
and  the  sentence  in  which  he  compares  the  gradual  awaken- 
ing of  the  human  faculties  to  the  sunrise,  which  "  first  opens 
a  little  eye  of  heaven,  and  sends  away  the  spirits  of  dark- 
ness, and  gives  light  to   a  cock,  and  calls   up  the  lark  to 


104  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

matins,  and  by  and  by  gilds  the  fringes  of  a  cloud,  and 
peeps  over  the  eastern  hills."  Perhaps  the  most  impressive 
single  passage  of  Taylor's  is  the  opening  chapter  in  Holy 
Dying.  From  the  midst  of  the  sickening  parajjhernalia  of 
death  which  he  there  accumulates  rises  that  delicate  image 
of  the  fading  rose,  one  of  the  most  perfect  things  in  its 
wording  in  all  our  prose  literature.  "  But  so  have  I  seen 
a  rose  newly  springing  from  the  clefts  of  its  hood,  and  at 
first  it  was  as  fair  as  the  morning,  and  full  with  the  dew  of 
heaven  as  a  lamb's  fleece  ;  but  when  a  ruder  breath  had 
forced  open  its  virgin  modesty,  and  dismantled  its  too  youth- 
ful and  unripe  retirements,  it  began  to  put  on  darkness  and 
to  decline  to  softness  and  the  symptoms  of  a  sickly  age ;  it 
bowed  the  head  and  broke  its  stock ;  and  at  night,  having 
lost  some  of  its  leaves  and  all  its  beauty,  it  fell  into  the 
portion  of  weeds  and  outworn  faces." 

With  the  progress  of  knowledge  and  discussion  many 
kinds  of  prose  literature,  which  were  not  absolutely  new, 
now  began  to  receive  wider  extension.  Of  this  sort  are  the 
Letters  from  Italy,  and  other  miscellanies  included  in  the 
Heliquke  Wottoniance,  or  remains  of  Sir  Henry  Wotton, 
English  embassador  at  Venice  in  the  reign  of  James  I.,  and 
subsequently  Provost  of  Eton  College.  Also  the  Table  Talk 
— full  of  incisive  remarks — left  by  John  Selden,  whom  Mil- 
ton pronounced  the  first  scholar  of  his  age,  and  who  wns  a 
distinguished  authority  in  legal  antiquities  and  international 
law,  furnished  notes  to  Drayton's  Polyolhion,  and  wrote  upon 
Eastern  religions,  and  upon  the  Arundel  marbles.  Literary 
biography  was  represented  by  the  charming  little  Lives  of 
good  old  Izaak  Walton,  the  first  edition  of  whose  Compleai 
Angler  was  printed  in  1653.  The  lives  were  five  in  num- 
ber; of  Hooker,  Wotton,  Donne,  Herbert,  and  Sanderson. 
Several  of  these  were  personal  friends  of  the  author,  and 
Sir  Henry  Wotton  was  a  brother  of  the  angle.  The  Coni- 
pleat  Angler,  though  not  the  first  piece  of  sporting  literature 


The  Age  of  Milton.  105 

in  English,  is  unquestionably  the  most  popular,  &nd  still 
remains  a  favorite  with  "all  that  are  lovers  of  virtue,  and 
dare  trust  in  Providence,  and  be  quiet,  and  go  a-angling." 
As  in  Aseham's  Toxophihis,  the  instruction  is  conveyed  in 
dialogue  form,  but  the  technical  part  of  the  book  is  relieved 
by  many  delightful  digressions.  Piscator  and  his  friend 
Venator  pursue  their  talk  under  a  honeysuckle  hedge  or  a 
sycamore-tree  during  a  passing  shower.  ■  They  repair,  after 
the  day's  fishing,  to  some  honest  ale-house,  with  lavender  in 
the  window  and  a  score  of  ballads  stuck  about  the  wall, 
where  they  sing  catches — "  old-fashioned  poetry  but  choicely 
good  " — composed  by  the  author  or  his  friends,  drink  barley 
wine,  and  eat  their  trout  or  chub.  They  encounter  milk- 
maids, who  sing  to  them  and  give  them  a  draft  of  the  red 
cow's  milk  and  they  never  cease  their  praises  of  the  angler's 
life,  of  rural  contentment  among  the  cowslip  meadows,  and 
the  quiet  streams  of  Thames,  or  Lea,  or  Shawford  Brook. 

The  decay  of  a  great  literary  school  is  usually  signalized 
by  the  exaggeration  of  its  characteristic  traits.  The  manner 
of  the  Elizabethan  poets  was  pushed  into  mannerism  by  their 
successors.  That  manner,  at  its  best,  was  hardly  a  simple 
one,  but  in  the  Stuart  and  Commonwealth  writers  it  became 
mere  extravagance.  Thus  Phineas  Fletcher^ a  cousin  of 
the  dramatist  —  composed  a  long  Spenserian  allegory,  the 
Piirple  Island,  descriptive  of  the  human  body.  George 
Herbert  and  others  made  anagrams,  and  verses  shaped  like 
an  altar,  a  cross,  or  a  pair  of  Easter  wings.  This  group  of 
poets  was  named,  by  Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  life  of  Cowley, 
the  metaphysical  school.  Other  critics  have  preferred  to 
call  them  the  fantastic  or  conceited  school,  the  later 
Euphuists  or  the  English  Marinists  and  Gongorists,  after  the 
poets  Marino  and  Gongora,  who  brought  this  fashion  to  its 
extreme  in  Italy  and  in  Spain.  The  English  conceptistas 
were  mainly  clergymen  of  the  established  church:  Donne, 
Herbert,  Yaughan,  Quarles,  and  Herrick.     But  Crashaw  was 


106  From  Chatjceb  to  Tennyson. 

a  Roman  Catholic,  and  Cowley — the  latest  of  them — a 
layman. 

The  one  who  set  the  fashion  was  Dr.  John  Donne,  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's,  whom  Dryclen  pronounced  a  great  wit,  but  not 
a  great  poet,  and  whom  Ben  Jonson  esteemed  the  best  poet 
in  the  world  for  some  things,  but  likely  to  be  forgotten  for 
want  of  being  understood.  Besides  satires  and  epistles  in 
verse,  he  composed  amatory  poems  in  his  youth,  and  divine 
poems  in  his  age,  both  kinds  distinguished  by  such  subtle 
obscurity,  and  far-fetched  ingenuities,  that  they  read  like  a 
series  of  puzzles.  When  this  poet  has  occasion  to  write  a 
valediction  to  his  mistress  upon  going  into  France,  he  com- 
pares their  temporary  separation  to  that  of  a  pair  of 
compasses  : 

Such  wilt  thou  be  to  me,  who  must, 
Like  the  other  foot  obliquely  run ; 

Thy  firmness  makes  my  circle  just, 
And  makes  me  end  where  I  begun. 

If  he  would  persuade  her  to  marriage  he  calls  her  attention 
to  a  flea — 

Me  it  sucked  first  and  now  sucks  thee, 
And  in  this  flea  our  two  bloods  mingled  be. 

He  says  that  the  flea  is  their  marriage-temple,  and  bids  her 
forbear  to  kill  it  lest  she  thereby  commit  murder,  suicide  and 
sacrilege  all  in  one.  Donne's  figures  are  scholastic  and  smell 
of  the  lamp.  He  ransacked  cosmography,  astrology,  alchemy, 
optics,  the  canon  law,  and  the  divinity  of  the  school-men  for 
ink-horn  terms  and  similes.  He  was  in  verse  what  Browne 
was  in  prose.  He  loved  to  play  with  distinctions,  hyper- 
boles, parodoxes,  the  ^ery  casuistry  and  dialectics  of  love  or 
devotion. 

Thou  canst  not  every  day  give  me  my  heart : 
If  thou  canst  give  it  then  thou  never  gav'st  it: 
Love's  riddles  are  that  though  thy  heart  depart 
It  stays  at  home,  and  thou  with  losing  sav'st  it. 


The  Age  op  Milton.  107 

Donne's  verse  is  usually  as  uncouth  as  his  thought.  But 
there  is  a  real  passion  slumbering  under  these  ashy  heaps 
of  conceit,  and  occasionally  a  pure  flame  darts  up,  as  in  the 

justly  admired  lines  : 

Her  pure  and  eloquent  blood 
Spoke  in  her  cheek,  and  so  divinely  wrought 
That  one  might  almost  say  her  body  thought. 

This  description  of  Donne  is  true,  with  modifications,  of 
all  the  metaphysical  poets.  They  had  the  same  forced  and 
unnatural  style.  The  ordinary  laws  of  the  association  of 
ideas  were  reversed  with  them.  It  was  not  the  nearest,  but 
the  remotest,  association  that  was  called  up.  "  Their 
attempts,"  said  Johnson,  "  were  always  analytic  :  they  broke 
every  image  into  fragments."  The  finest  spirit  among  them 
was  "  holy  George  Herbert,"  whose  Temple  was  published 
in  1633.  The  titles  in  this  volume  were  such  as  the  follow- 
ing :  Christmas,  East6r,  Good  Friday,  Holy  Baptism,  The 
Cross,  The  Church  Porch,  Church  Music,  The  Holy  Script- 
ures, Redemption,  Faith,  Doomsday.  Never  since,  except, 
perhaps,  in  Keble's  Christian  Year,  have  the  ecclesiastic 
ideals  of  the  Anglican  Church — the  "  beauty  of  holiness  " — 
found  such  sweet  expression  in  poetry.     The  verses  entitled 

Virtue — 

Sweet  day,  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright, 

are  known  to  most  readers,  as  well  as  the  line, 

Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  thy  laws  makes  that  and  the  action  fine. 

The  quaintly  named  pieces,  the  Elixir,  the  Collar,  and  the 
Pulley,  are  full  of  deep  thought  and  spiritual  feeling.  But 
Herbert's  poetry  is  constantly  disfigured  by  bad  taste.  Take 
this  passage  from  Whitsunday, 

Listen,  sweet  dove,  unto  ray  song, 
And  spread  thy  golden  wings  on  me, 

Hatching  my  tender  heart  so  long, 

Till  it  get  wing  and  fly  away  with  thee, 


108  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

which  is  almost  as  ludicrous  as  the  epitaph  written  by  his 
contemporary,  Carew,  on  the  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas  Went- 

worth,  whose  soul 

.  .  .  grew  so  fast  within 
It  broke  the  outward  shell  of  sin, 
And  so  was  hatched  a  cherubin. 

Another  of  these  church  poets  was  Henry  Vaughan,  "  the 
Silurist,"  or  Welshman,  whose  fine  piece,  the  Retreat,  has 
been  often  compared  with  Wordsworth's  Ode  on  the  Intima- 
tions of  Immortality.  Frances  Quarles's  Divine  Emblems 
long  remained  a  favorite  book  with  religious  readers  both  in 
old  and  New  England.  Emblem  books,  in  which  engravings 
of  a  figurative  design  were  accompanied  with  explanatory 
letterpress  in  verse,  were  a  popular  class  of  literature  in  the 
17th  century.  The  most  famous  of  them  all  were  Jacob 
■Catt's  Dutch  emblems. 

One  of  the  most  delightful  of  the  English  lyric  poets  is 
Robert  Herrick,  whose  Hesperides,  1648,  has  lately  received 
such  sympathetic  illustration  from  the  pencil  of  an  American 
artist,  Mr.  E.  A.  Abbey.  Herrick  was  a  clergyman  of  the 
English  Church  and  was  expelled  by  the  Puritans  from  his 
living,  the  vicarage  of  Dean  Prior,  in  Devonshire.  The 
most  quoted  of  his  religious  poems  is,  Sow  to  Keep  a  True 
Lent.  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  his  tastes  were  pre- 
vailingly clerical ;  his  poetry  certainly  was  not.  He  was  a 
disciple  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  his  boon  companion  at 

.  .  .  those  lyric  feasts 
Made  at  the  Sun, 
The  Dog,  the  Triple  Tun; 
Where  we  such  clusters  had 
As  made  us  nobly  wild,  not  mad. 
And  yet  each  verse  of  thine, 
Outdid  the  meat,  outdid  the  frolic  wine. 

Herrick's  Nolle  Numbers  seldom  rises  above  the  expression 
of  a  cheerful  gratitude  and  contentment.     He  had  not  the 


The  Age  of  Milton.  109 

subtlety  and  elevation  of  Herbert,  but  he  surpassed  him  in  the 
grace,  melody,  sensuous  beauty,  and  fresh  lyrical  impulse  of 
his  verse.  The  conceits  of  the  metaphysical  school  appear 
in  Herrick  only  in  the  form  of  an  occasional  pretty  quaint- 
ness.  He  is  the  poet  of  English  parish  festivals  and  of  English 
flowers,  the  primrose,  the  whitethorn,  the  daffodil.  He  sang 
the  praises  of  the  country  life,  love  songs  to  "  Julia,"  and 
hymns  of  thanksgiving  for  simple  blessings.  He  has  been 
called  the  English  Catullus,  but  he  strikes  rather  the  Hora- 
tian  note  of  Carpe  diem  and  regret  at  the  shortness  of  life 
and  youth  in  many  of  his  best-known  poems,  such  as  Gather 
ye  Hose-buds  while  ye  may,  and  To  Corinna,  To  Go  a 
Maying. 

Richard  Crashaw  was  a  Cambridge  scholar  who  was  turned 
out  of  his  fellowship  at  Peterhouse  by  the  Puritans  in  1644, 
for  refusing  to  subscribe  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant ; 
became  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  died  in  1650  as  a  canon  of 
the  Virgin's  Chapel  at  Loretto.  He  is  best  known  to  the 
general  reader  by  his  Wishes  for  his  Unknown  Mistress, 

That  not  impossible  she 

which  is  included  in  most  of  the  anthologies.  His  religious 
poetry  expresses  a  rapt  and  mystical  piety,  fed  on  the  ecstatic 
visions  of  St.  Theresa,  "  undaunted  daughter  of  desires,"  who 
is  the  subject  of  a  splendid  apostrophe  in  his  poem.  The 
Flamming  Heart.  Crashaw  is,  in  fact,  a  poet  of  passages  and 
of  single  lines,  his  work  being  exceedingly  uneven  and  dis- 
figured by  tasteless  conceits.  In  one  of  his  Latin  epigrams 
occurs  the  celebrated  line  upon  the  miracle  at  Cana  ; 

'Vidit  et  erubuit  nympha  pudica  Deum: 

as  englished  by  Dryden, 

The  conscious  water  saw  its  Lord  and  blushed. 

Abraham  Cowley  is  now  less  remembered  for  his  poetry 
than  for  his  pleasant  volume  of  essays,  published  after  the 


110  From  Chaucer  to  Teitnyson. 

Restoration  ;  but  he  was  thought  in  his  own  time  a  better 
poet  than  Milton.  His  collection  of  love  songs — the  Mistress 
— is  a  mass  of  cold  conceits,  in  the  metaphysical  manner ; 
but  his  elegies  on  Crashaw  and  Harvey  have  much  dignity 
and  natural  feeling.  He  introduced  the  Pindaric  ode  into 
English,  and  wrote  an  epic  poem  on  a  biblical  subject — the 
Davideis — now  quite  unreadable.  Cowley  was  a  royalist, 
and  followed  the  exiled  court  to  France. 

Side  by  side  with  the  church  poets  were  the  cavaliers — 
Carew,  Waller,  Lovelace,  Suckling,  L'Estrange,  and  others — 
gallant  courtiers  and  officers  in  the  royal  army,  who  mingled 
love  and  loyalty  in  their  strains.  Colonel  Richard  Lovelace, 
who  lost  every  thing  in  the  king's  service,  and  was  several 
times  imprisoned,  wrote  two  famous  songs — To  Lucasta  on 
going  to  the  Wars — in  which  occur  the  lines, 

I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  honor  more — 

and  to  Althaea  from  Prison,  in  which  he  sings  "the  sweet- 
ness, mercy,  majesty,  and  glories  "  of  his  king,  and  declares 
that  "  stone-walls  do  not  a  prison  make,  nor  iron  bars  a  cage." 
Another  of  the  cavaliers  was  Sir  John  Suckling,  who  formed 
a  plot  to  rescue  the  Earl  of  Strafford,  raised  a  troop  of  horse 
for  Charles  I.,  was  impeached  by  the  Parliament  and  fled  to 
France.  He  was  a  man  of  wit  and  pleasure,  who  penned  a 
number  of  gay  trifles,  but  has  been  saved  from  oblivion 
chiefly  by  his  exquisite  Ballad  upon  a  Wedding.  Thomas 
Carew  and  Edmund  Waller  were  poets  of  the  same  stamp 
— graceful  and  easy,  but  shallow  in  feeling.  Carew,  how- 
ever, showed  a  nicer  sense  of  form  than  most  of  the  fantastic 
school.  Some  of  his  love  songs  are  written  with  delicate  art. 
There  are  noble  lines  in  his  elegy  on  Donne  and  in  one  passage 
of  his  masque  Ccdum  JSritannicum.  In  his  poem  entitled 
The  Maptitre  great  splendor  of  language  and  imagery  is 
devoted  to  the  service  of  an  unbridled  sensuality.  Waller, 
who  followed  the  court  to  Paris,  was  the  author  of  two  songs, 


The  Age  of  Milton.  Ill 

which  are  still  favorites,  Go,  Lovely  Rose,  and  Oyi  a  Girdle, 
and  he  first  introduced  the  smooth,  correct  manner  of  writing 
in  couplets,  which  Dryden  and  Pope  carried  to  perfection. 
Gallantry  rather  than  love  was  the  inspiration  of  these  courtly 
singers.  In  such  verses  as  Carew's  Encouragements  to  a  Lover, 
and  George  Wither's  The  Manly  Heart, 

If  she  be  not  so  to  me, 

What  care  I  how  fair  she  be  ? — 

we  see  the  revolt  against  the  high,  passionate,  Sidneian  love 
of  the  Elizabethan  sonneteers,  and  the  note  of  persiflage  that 
was  to  mark  the  lyrical  verse  of  the  Restoration.  But  the 
poetry  of  the  cavaliers  reached  its  high- water  mark  in  one 
fiery-hearted  song  by  the  noble  and  unfortunate  James 
Graham,  Marquis  of  Montrose,  who  invaded  Scotland  in  the 
interest  of  Charles  II,,  and  was  taken  prisoner  and  put  to 
death  at  Edinburgh  in  1650. 

My  dear  and  only  love,  I  pray 

That  little  world  of  thee 
Be  governed  by  no  other  sway 

Than  purest  monarchy. 

In  language  borrowed  from  the  politics  of  the  time,  he  cau- 
tions his  mistress  against  synods  or  committees  in  her  heart ; 
swears  to  make  her  glorious  by  his  pen  and  famous  by  his 
sword  ;  and,  mth  that  fine  recklessness  which  distinguished 
the  dashing  troopers  of  Prince  Rupert,  he  adds,  in  words 
that  have  been  often  quoted. 

He  either  fears  his  fate  too  much. 

Or  his  deserts  are  small, 
That  dares  not  put  it  to  the  touch 

To  gain  or  lose  it  all. 

John  Milton,  the  greatest  English  poet  except  Shakspere, 
was  born  in  London  in  1608.  His  father  was  a  scrivener,  an 
educated  man,  and  a  musical  composer  of  some  merit.  At 
his  home  Milton  was  surrounded  with  all  the  inflences  of  a 


112  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

refined  and  well-ordered  Puritan  household  of  the  better 
class.  He  inherited  his  father's  musical  tastes,  and  during 
the  latter  part  of  his  life  he  spent  a  part  of  every  afternoon 
in  playing  the  organ.  No  poet  has  written  more  beautifully 
of  music  than  Milton,  One  of  his  sonnets  was  addressed  to 
Henry  Lawes,  the  composer,  who  wrote  the  airs  to  the  songs 
in  Comus.  Milton's  education  was  most  careful  and  thorougli. 
He  spent  seven  years  at  Cambridge,  where,  from  his  personal 
beauty  and  fastidious  habits,  he  was  called  "  The  lady  of 
Christ's."  At  Horton,  in  Buckinghamshire,  where  his  father 
had  a  country  seat,  he  passed  five  years  more,  perfecting  him- 
self in  his  studies,  and  then  traveled  for  fifteen  months, 
mainly  in  Italy,  visiting  Naples  and  Rome,  but  residing  at 
Florence.  Here  he  Saw  Galileo,  a  prisoner  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion "  for  thinking  otherwise  in  astronomy  than  his  Domini- 
can and  Franciscan  licensers  thought."  Milton  was  the  most 
scholarly  and  the  most  truly  classical  of  English  poets.  His 
Latin  verse,  for  elegance  and  correctness,  ranks  with  Addi- 
son's ;  and  his  Italian  poems  were  the  admiration  of  the 
Tuscan  scholars.  But  his  learning  appears  in  his  poetry  only 
in  the  form  of  a  fine  and  chastened  result,  and  not  in  labo- 
rious allusion  and  pedantic  citation,  as  too  often  in  Ben 
Jonson,  for  instance.  "  My  father,"  he  wrote,  "  destined  me, 
while  yet  a  little  child,  for  the  study  of  humane  letters."  He 
was  also  destined  for  the  ministry,  but,  "  coming  to  some 
maturity  of  years  and  perceiving  what  tyrany  had  invaded 
the  Church,  ...  I  thought  it  better  to  prefer  a  blameless 
silence,  before  the  sacred  oflice  of  speaking,  bought  and 
begun  with  servitude  and  forswearing."  Other  hands  than 
a  bishop's  were  laid  upon  his  head.  "  He  who  would  not  be 
frustrate  of  his  hope  to  write  well  hereafter,"  he  says,  "  ought 
himself  to  be  a  true  poem,"  And  he  adds  that  his  "  natural 
haughtiness  "  saved  him  from  all  impurity  of  living.  Milton 
had  a  sublime  self-respect.  The  dignity  and  earnestness  of 
the  Puritan  gentleman  blended  in  his  training  with  the  cult- 


The  Age  of  Milton.  113 

ure  of  the  Renaissance.  Born  into  an  age  of  spiritual  con- 
flict, he  dedicated  his  gift  to  the  service  of  Heaven,  and  he 
became,  like  Heine,  a  valiant  soldier  in  the  war  for  liberation. 
He  was  the  poet  of  a  cause,  and  his  song  was  keyed  to 

the  Dorian  mood 
Of  flutes  and  soft  recorders  such  as  raised 
To  height  of  noblest  temper,  heroes  old 
Arming  to  battle. 

On  comparing  Milton  with  Shakspere,  with  his  universal  sym- 
pathies and  receptive  imagination,  one  perceives  a  loss  in 
breadth,  but  a  gain  in  intense  personal  conviction.  He  intro- 
duced a  new  note  into  English  poetry:  the  passion  for  truth 
and  the  feeling  of  religious  sublimity.  Milton's  was  an 
heroic  age,  and  its  song  must  be  lyric  rather  than  dramatic  ; 
its  singer  must  be  in  the  fight  and  of  it. 

Of  the  verses  which  he  wrote  at  Cambridge  the  most  impor- 
tant was  his  splendid  ode  On  the  Morning  of  Christ'' s  Nativity. 
At  Horton  he  wrote,  among  other  things,  the  companion  pieces, 
L'' Allegro  and  U  Penseroso,  of  a  kind  quite  new  in  English,  giv- 
ing to  the  landscape  an  expression  in  harmony  with  the  two 
contrasted  moods.  Gomits,  which  belongs  to  the  same  period, 
was  the  perfection  of  the  Elizabethan  court  masque,  and  was 
presented  at  Ludlow  Castle  in  1634,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
installation  of  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater  as  Lord  President  of 
Wales.  Under  the  guise  of  a  skillful  addition  to  the  Homeric 
allegory  of  Circe,  with  her  cup  of  enchantment,  it  was  a  Puri- 
tan song  in  praise  of  chastity  and  temperance.  Lycidas,  in  like 
manner,  was  the  perfection  of  the  Elizabethan  pastoral  elegy. 
It  was  contributed  to  a  volume  of  memorial  verses  on  the  death 
of  Edward  King,  a  Cambridge  friend  of  Milton's,  who  was 
drowned  in  the  Irish  Channel  in  1637.  In  one  stern  strain, 
which  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  St.  Peter,  the  author  "fore- 
tells the  ruin  of  our  corrupted  clergy,  then  at  their  height." 

But  that  two-handed  engine  at  the  door 
Stands  ready  to  smite  once  and  smite  no  more. 


114  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

This  was  Milton's  last  utterance  in  English  verse  befoi'e  the 
outbreak  of  the  civil  war,  and  it  sounds  the  alarm  of  the  im- 
pending struggle.  In  technical  quality  Lycidas  is  the  most 
wonderful  of  all  Milton's  poems.  The  cunningly  intricate 
harmony  of  the  verse,  the  pressed  and  packed  language,  with 
its  fullness  of  meaning  and  allusion,  make  it  worthy  of  the 
minutest  study.  In  these  early  poems,  Milton,  merely  as  a 
poet,  is  at  his  best.  Something  of  the  Elizabethan  style  still 
clings  to  them;  but  their  grave  sweetness,  their  choice  word- 
ing, their  originality  in  epithet,  name,  and  phrase,  were 
novelties  of  Milton's  own.  His  English  masters  were  Spenser, 
Fletcher,  and  Sylvester,  the  translator  of  Du  Bartas's  JOa 
Seniaine,  but  nothing  of  Spenser's  prolixity,  or  Fletcher's 
effeminacy,  or  Sylvester's  quaintness  is  found  in  Milton's 
pure,  energetic  diction.  He  inherited  their  beauties,  but  bis 
taste  had  been  tempered  to  a  finer  edge  by  his  studies 
in  Greek  and  Hebrew  poetry.  He  was  the  last  of  the 
Elizabethans,  and  his  style  was  at  once  the  crown  of  the  old 
and  a  departure  into  the  new-  In  masque,  elegy,  and  sonnet 
he  set  the  seal  to  the  Elizabethan  poetry,  said  the  last  word, 
and  closed  one  great  literary  era. 

In  1639  the  breach  between  Charles  I.  and  his  Parliament 
brought  Milton  back  from  Italy.  "  I  thought  it  base  to  be 
traveling  at  my  ease  for  amusement,  while  my  fellow- 
countrymen  at  home  were  fighting  for  liberty."  For  the 
next  twenty  years  he  threw  himself  into  the  contest,  and 
poured  forth  a  succession  of  tracts,  in  English  and  Latin, 
upon  the  various  public  questions  at  issue.  As  a  political 
thinker,  Milton  had  what  Bacon  calls  "the  humor  of  a 
scholar."  In  a  country  of  endowed  grammar  schools  and 
universities  hardly  emerged  from  a  mediaeval  discipline  and 
curriculum,  he  wanted  to  set  up  Greek  gymnasia  and  philo- 
sophical schools,  after  the  fashion  of  the  Porch  and  the 
Academy.  He  would  have  imposed  an  Athenian  democracy 
upon  a  people  trained  in  the  traditions  of  monarchy  and 


The  Age  of  Milton.  115 

episcopacy.  At  the  very  moment  when  England  had  grown 
tired  of  the  Protectorate  and  was  preparing  to  welcome  back 
the  Stuarts,  he  was  writing  An  Easy  and  Heady  Way  to 
Establish  a  Free  Commonwealth.  Milton  acknowledged  that 
in  prose  he  had  the  use  of  his  left  hand  only.  There  are  pas- 
sages of  fervid  eloquence,  where  the  style  swells  into  a  kind 
of  lofty  chant,  with  a  rhythmical  rise  and  fall  to  it,  as  in  parts 
of  the  English  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  But  in  general 
his  sentences  are  long  and  involved,  full  of  inversions  and 
latinized  constructions.  Controversy  at  that  day  was  con- 
ducted on  scholastic  lines.  Each  disputant,  instead  of  '  ap- 
pealing at  once  to  the  arguments  of  expediency  and  common 
sense,  began  with  a  formidable  display  of  learning,  ransack- 
ing Greek  and  Latin  authors  and  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
for  opinions  in  support  of  his  own  position.  These  authori- 
ties he  deployed  at  tedious  length,  and  followed  them  up  with 
heavy  scurrilities  and  "  excusations,"  by  way  of  attack  and 
defense.  The  dispute  between  Milton  and  Salmasius  over 
the  execution  of  Charles  I.  was  like  a  duel  between  two 
knights  in  full  armor  striking  at  each  other  with  ponderous 
maces.  The  very  titles  of  these  pamphlets  are  enough  to 
frighten  off  a  modern  reader :  A  Confutation  of  the  Ani- 
niadversions  upon  a  Defense  of  a  Humhle  Memonstrance 
against  a  Treatise,  entitled  Of  Reformation.  The  most  in- 
teresting of  Milton's  prose  tracts  is  his  Areopagitica :  A 
Speech  for  the  Liberty  of  Unlicensed  Printing,  1644.  The 
arguments  in  this  are  of  permanent  force;  but  if  the  reader 
will  compare  it,  or  Jeremy  Taylor's  Liberty  of  Prophesying, 
with  Locke's  Letters  on  Toleration,  he  will  see  how  much 
clearer  and  more  convincing  is  the  modern  method  of  dis- 
cussion, introduced  by  writers  like  Hobbes  and  Locke  and 
Dryden.  Under  the  Protectorate  Milton  was  appointed  Latin 
Secretary  to  the  Council  of  State.  In  the  diplomatic  cor- 
respondence which  was  his  official  duty,  and  in  the  composi- 
tion of  his  tract,  Defensio  pro  Popuhdo  Anglicano,  he  over- 


116  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

taxed  his  eyes,  and  in  1654  became  totally  blind.  The  only 
poetry  of  Milton's  belonging  to  the  years  1640-1660  are  a 
few  sonnets  of  the  pure  Italian  form,  mainly  called  forth  by 
public  occasions.  By  the  Elizabethans  the  sonnets  had  been 
used  mainly  in  love  poetry.  In  Milton's  hands,  said  Words- 
worth, "  the  thing  became  a  trumpet."  Some  of  his  were 
addressed  to  political  leaders,  like  Fairfax,  Cromwell,  and  Sir 
Henry  Vane;  and  of  these  the  best  is,  perhaps,  the  sonnet 
written  on  the  massacre  of  the  Vaudois  Protestants — "  a  col- 
lect in  verse,"  it  has  been  called — which  has  the  fire  of  a 
Hebrew  prophet  invoking  the  divine  wrath  upon  the  op- 
pressors of  Israel.  Two  were  on  his  own  blindness,  and  in 
these  there  is  not  one  selfish  repining,  but  only  a  regret  that 
the  value  of  his  service  is  impaired — 

Will  God  exact  day  labor,  light  denied  ? 

After  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  in  1660,  Milton  was 
for  a  while  in  peril,  by  reason  of  the  part  that  he  had  taken 
against  the  king.     But 

On  evil  days  though  fallen,  and  evil  tongues, 
In  darkness  and  with  dangers  compassed  round 
And  solitude, 

he  bated  no  jot  of  heart  or  hope.  Henceforth  he  becomes 
the  most  heroic  and  affecting  figure  in  English  literary  his- 
tory. Years  before  he  had  planned  an  epic  poem  on  the  sub- 
ject of  King  Arthur,  and  again  a  sacred  tragedy  on  man's 
fall  and  redemption.  These  experiments  finally  took  shape 
in  Paradise  Lost,  which  was  given  to  the  world  in  1667. 
This  is  the  epic  of  English  Puritanism  and  of  Protestant 
Christianity.     It  was  Milton's  purpose  to 

assert  eternal  Providence 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men, 

or,  in  other  words,  to  embody  his  theological  system  in 
verse.  This  gives  a  doctrinal  rigidity  and  even  dryness  to 
parts  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  which  injure  its  effect  as  a  poem. 


The  Age  of  Milton.  117 

His  "God  the  father  turns  a  school  divine:"  his  Christ,  as 
has  been  wittily  said,  is  "  God's  good  boy:"  the  discourses  of 
Raphael  to  Adam  are  scholastic  lectures:  Adam  himself  is 
too  sophisticated  for  the  state  of  innocence,  and  Eve  is  some- 
what insipid.  The  real  protagonist  of  the  poem  is  Satan,  upon 
whose  mighty  figure  Milton  unconsciously  bestowed  some- 
thing of  his  own  nature,  and  whose  words  of  defiance  might 
almost  have  come  from  some  Republican  leader  when  the 
Good  Old  Cause  went  down. 

"What  though  the  field  be  lost  ? 
All  is  not  lost ;  the  unconquerable  will 
And  study  of  revenge,  immortal  hate, 
And  courage  never  to  submit  or  yield. 

But  when  all  has  been  said  that  can  be  said  in  disparagement 
or  qualification,  Paradise  Lost  remains  the  foremost  of  En- 
glish poems  and  the  sublimest  of  all  epics.  Even  in  those 
parts  where  theology  encroaches  most  upon  poetry,  the  dic- 
tion, though  often  heavy,  is  never  languid.  Milton's  blank 
verse  in  itself  is  enough  to  bear  up  the  most  prosaic  theme, 
and  so  is  his  epic  English,  a  style  more  massive  and  splendid 
than  Shakspere's,  and  comparable,  like  Tertullian's  Latin,  to 
a  river  of  molten  gold.  Of  the  countless  single  beauties  that 
sow  his  page 

Thick  as  autumnal  leaves  that  strew  the  brooks 
In  Valombrosa, 

there  is  no  room  to  speak,  nor  of  the  astonishing  fullness  of 
substance  and  multitude  of  thoughts  which  have  caused  the 
Paradise  Lost  to  be  called  the  book  of  universal  knowledge. 
"  The  heat  of  Milton's  mind,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "  might  be 
said  to  sublimate  his  learning  and  throw  off  into  his  work  the 
spirit  of  science,  unmingled  with  its  grosser  parts."  The 
truth  of  this  remark  is  clearly  seen  upon  a  comparison  of 
Milton's  description  of  the  creation,  for  example,  with  cor- 
responding passages  in  Sylvester's  Divine  Weeks  and  Works 


118  Fkom:  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

(translated  from  the  Huguenot  poet,  Du  Bartas),  which  was, 
in  some  sense,  his  original.  But  the  most  heroic  thing  in 
Milton's  heroic  poem  is  Milton.  There  are  no  strains  in 
Paradise  Lost  so  absorbing  as  those  in  which  the  poet  breaks 
the  strict  epic  bounds  and  speaks  directly  of  himself,  as  in 
the  majestic  lament  over  his  own  blindness,  and  in  the  invo- 
cation to  Urania,  which  open  the  third  and  seventh  books. 
Every- where,  too,  one  reads  between  the  lines.  We  think  of 
the  dissolute  cavaliers,  as  Milton  himself  undoubtedly  was 
thinking  of  them,  when  we  read  of  "  the  sons  of  Belial  flown 
with  insolence  and  wine,"  or  when  the  Puritan  turns  among 
the  sweet  landscapes  of  Eden,  to  denounce 

court  amours 
Mixed  dance,  or  wanton  mask,  or  midnight  ball. 
Or  serenade  which,  the  starved  lover  sings 
To  his  proud  fair,  best  quitted  with  disdain. 

And  we  think  of  Milton  among  the  triumphant  royalists 
when  we  read  of  the  Seraph  Abdiel  "  faithful  found  among 
the  faithless." 

Nor  number  nor  example  with  him  wrought 

To  swerve  from  truth  or  change  his  constant  mind, 

Though  single.     From  amidst  them  forth  he  passed, 

Long  way  through  hostile  scorn,  which  he  sustained 

Superior,  nor  of  violence  feared  aught: 

And  with  retorted  scorn  his  back  he  turned 

On  those  proud  towers  to  swift  destruction  doomed. 

Paradise  Regained  and  Samson  Agonistes  were  published 
in  1671.  The  first  of  these  treated  in  four  books  Christ's 
temptation  in  the  wilderness,  a  subject  that  had  already  been 
handled  in  the  Spenserian  allegorical  manner  by  Giles 
Fletcher,  a  brother  of  the  Purple  Islander,  in  his  Chrisfs 
Victory  and  Triumph^  1610.  The  superiority  of  Paradise 
Lost  to  its  sequel  is  not  without  significance.  The  Puritans 
were  Old  Testament  men.  Their  God  was  the  Hebrew  Je- 
hovah, whose  single  divinity  the  Catholic  mythology  had 


The  Age  of  Milton.  119 

overlaid  with  the  figures  of  the  Son,  the  Virgin  Mary,  and 
the  saints.  They  identified  themselves  in  thought  with  his 
chosen  people,  with  the  militant  theocracy  of  the  Jews. 
Their  sword  was  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon.  "  To 
your  tents,  O  Israel,"  was  the  cry  of  the  London  mob  when 
the  bishops  were  committed  to  the  Tower.  And  when  the 
fog  lifted,  on  the  morning  of  the  battle  of  Dunbar,  Cromwell 
exclaimed,  "  Let  God  arise  and  let  his  enemies  be  scattered : 
like  as  the  sun  riseth,  so  shalt  thou  drive  them  away." 

Samson  Agonistes,  though  Hebrew  in  theme  and  spirit, 
was  in  f  onn  a  Greek  tragedy.  It  has  chorus  and  semi-chorus, 
and  preserved  the  so-called  dramatic  unities;  that  is,  the 
scene  was  unchanged,  and  there  were  no  intervals  of  time  be- 
tween the  acts.  In  accordance  with  the  rules  of  the  Greek 
theater,  but  two  speakers  appeared  upon  the  stage  at  once, 
and  there  was  no  violent  action.  The  death  of  Samson  is 
related  by  a  messenger.  Milton's  reason  for  the  choice  of 
this  subject  is  obvious.  He  himself  was  Samson,  shorn  of 
his  strength,  blind,  and  alone  among  enemies;  given  over 

to  the  unjust  tribunals,  under  change  of  times, 
And  condemnation  of  the  ungrateful  multitude. 

As  Milton  grew  older  he  discarded  more  and  more  the 
graces  of  poetry,  and  relied  purely  upon  the  structure  and 
the  thought.  In  Paradise  Lost,  although  there  is  little  re- 
semblance to  Elizabethan  work — such  as  one  notices  in 
Comus  and  the  Christmas  hymn — yet  the  style  is  rich,  espe- 
cially in  the  earlier  books.  But  in  Paradise  Regained  it  is 
severe  to  bareness,  and  in  Samson,  even  to  ruggedness.  Like 
Michelangelo,  with  whose  genius  he  had  much  in  common, 
Milton  became  impatient  of  finish  or  of  mere  beauty.  He 
blocked  out  his  work  in  masses,  left  rough  places  and  sur- 
faces not  filled  in,  and  inclined  to  express  his  meaning  by  a 
symbol,  rather  than  work  it  out  in  detail.  It  was  a  part  of 
his  austerity,  his  increasing  preference  for  structural  over 


120  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

decorative  methods,  to  give  up  rime  for  blank  verse.  His 
latest  poem,  Samson  Agonistes,  is  a  metrical  study  of  the 
highest  interest. 

Milton  was  not  quite  alone  among  the  poets  of  his  time  in 
espousing  the  popular  cause.  Andrew  Marvell,  who  was  his 
assistant  in  the  Latin  secretaryship  and  sat  in  Parliament  for 
Hull,  after  the  Restoration,  was  a  good  Republican,  and 
wrote  a  fine  Horatian  Ode  upon  CromioeWs  Return  from 
Ireland.  There  is  also  a  rare  imaginative  quality  in  his  Song 
of  the  Exiles  in  Bermuda,  Thoughts  in  a  Garden,  and  The 
Girl  Describes  her  Fawn.  George  Wither,  who  was  impris- 
oned for  his  satires,  also  took  the  side  of  the  Parliament,  but 
there  is  little  that  is  distinctively  Puritan  in  his  poetry. 


1.  Milton's  Poetical  Works.      Edited  by  David  Masson. 
London:  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1882.  3  vols. 

2.  Selections  from  Milton's  Prose.    Edited  by  F.  D.  Myers. 
New  York  :  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1883.     (Parchment  Series.) 

3.  England's  Antiphon.    By  George  Macdonald.    London: 
Macmillan  &  Co.,  1868. 

4.  Robert  Herrick's  Hesperides.      London:  George  Rout- 
ledge  <fe  Sons,  1885.     (Morley's  Universal  Library). 

5.  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  Religio  Medici  and  Hydriotaphia. 
Edited  by  Willis  Bund.     Sampson  Low  &  Co.,  18V3. 

6.  Thomas  Fuller's  Good  Thoughts  in  Bad  Times.     Bos- 
ton: Ticknor  &  Fields,  1863. 

7.  Walton's    Complete    Angler.      Edited    by   Sir   Harris 
Nicolas.     London:  Chatto  &  Windus,  1875. 


From  the  Restoration  to  Death  of  Pope.       121 


CHAPTER  V. 

FROM  THE  RESTORATION  TO  THE  DEATH  OF  POPE. 
1660-1744. 

The  Stuart  Restoration  was  a  period  of  descent  from 
poetry  to  prose,  from  passion  and  imagination  to  wit  and 
the  understanding.  The  serious,  exalted  mood  of  the  civil  war 
and  Commonwealth  had  spent  itself  and  issued  in  disillusion. 
There  followed  a  generation  of  wits,  logical,  skeptical,  and 
prosaic,  without  earnestness,  as  without  principle.  The 
characteristic  literature  of  such  a  time  is  criticism,  satire, 
and  burlesque,  and  such,  indeed,  continued  to  be  the  course 
of  English  literary  history  for  a  century  after  the  return  of  the 
Stuarts.  The  age  was  not  a  stupid  one,  but  one  of  active 
inquiry.  The  Royal  Society,  for  the  cultivation  of  the  nat- 
ural sciences,  was  founded  in  1662.  There  were  able  divines 
in  the  pulpit  and  at  the  universities — Barrow,  Tillotson, 
Stillingfleet,  South,  and  others:  scholars,  like  Bentley;  histor- 
ians, like  Clarendon  and  Burnet;  scientists,  like  Boyle  and 
Newton ;  philosophers,  like  Hobbes  and  Locke.  But  of 
poetry,  in  any  high  sense  of  the  word,  there  was  little 
between  the  time  of  Milton  and  the  time  of  Goldsmith  and 
Gray. 

The  English  writers  of  this  period  were  strongly  influenced 
by  the  contemporary  literature  of  France,  by  the  comedies 
of  Molidre,  the  tragedies  of  Corneille  and  Racine,  and  the 
satires,  epistles,  and  versified  essays  of  Boileau.  Many  of 
the  Restoration  writers — Waller,  Cowley,  Davenant,  Wych- 
erley,  Yilliers,  and  others — had  been  in  France  during  the 
€xile,   and  brought  back  with  them  French  tastes.     John 


122  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Dryden  (1631-1700),  who  is  the  great  literary  figure  of  his 
generation,  has  been  called  the  first  of  the  moderns.  From 
the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  indeed,  we  may  date  the  beginnings 
of  modern  English  life.  What  we  call  "  society  "  was  form- 
ing, the  town,  the  London  world.  "  Coffee,  which  makes 
the  politician  wise,"  had  just  been  introduced,  and  the  ordi- 
naries of  Ben  Jonson's  time  gave  way  to  coffee-houses,  like 
Will's  and  Button's,  which  became  the  head-quarters  of  liter- 
ary and  political  gossip.  The  two  great  English  parties,  as 
we  know  them  to-day,  were  organized:  the  words  Whig  and 
Tory  date  from  this  reign.  French  etiquette  and  fashions 
came  in,  and  French  phrases  of  convenience — such  as  coup 
de  grace,  hel  esprit,  etc. — began  to  appear  in  English  prose. 
Literature  became  intensely  urban  and  partisan.  It  reflected 
city  life,  the  disputes  of  faction,  and  the  personal  quarrels  of 
authors.  The  politics  of  the  great  rebellion  had  been  of 
heroic  proportions,  and  found  fitting  expression  in  song. 
But  in  the  Revolution  of  1688  the  issues  were  constitutional 
and  to  be  settled  by  the  arguments  of  lawyers.  Meas- 
ures were  in  question  rather  than  principles,  and  there  was 
little  inspiration  to  the  poet  in  Exclusion  Bills  and  Acts  of 
Settlement. 

Court  and  society,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  IT.  and  James 
II.,  were  shockingly  dissolute,  and  in  literature,  as  in  life, 
the  reaction  against  Puritanism  went  to  great  extremes.  The 
social  life  of  the  time  is  faithfully  reflected  in  the  diary  of 
Samuel  Pepys.  He  was  a  simple-minded  man,  the  son  of  a 
London  tailor,  and  became,  himself,  secretary  to  the  admi- 
ralty. His  diary  was  kept  in  cipher,  and  published  only  in 
1825.  Being  written  for  his  own  eye,  it  is  singularly  out- 
spoken; and  its  naive,  gossipy,  confidential  tone  makes  it  a 
most  diverting  book,  as  it  is,  historically,  a  most  valuable  one. 

Perhaps  the  most  popular  book  of  its  time  was  Samuel  But- 
ler's Hudibras  (1663-1664),  a  burlesque  romance  in  ridicule 
of  the  Puritans.     The  king  carried  a  copy  of  it  in  his  pocket, 


From  the  Restoration  to  Death  of  Pope.       123 

and  Pepys  testifies  that  it  was  quoted  and  praised  on  all 
sides.  Ridicule  of  the  Puritans  was  nothing  new.  Zeal-of- 
the-land  Busy,  in  Ben  Jonson's  Bartholomew  Fair,  is  an 
early  instance  of  the  kind.  There  was  nothing  laughable 
about  the  earnestness  of  men  like  Cromwell,  Milton,  Algernon 
Sidney,  and  Sir  Henry  Vane.  But  even  the  French  Revolu- 
tion had  its  humors;  and  as  the  English  Puritan  Revolution 
gathered  head  and  the  extremer  sectaries  pressed  to  the  front 
— Quakers,  New  Lights,  Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  Ranters,  etc., 
— its  grotesque  sides  came  uppermost.  Butler's  hero  is  a 
Presbyterian  justice  of  the  peace  who  sallies  forth  with  his 
secretary,  Ralpho — an  Independent  and  Anabaptist — like 
Don  Quixote  with  Sancho  Panza,  to  suppress  May  games 
and  bear-baitings.  (Macaulay,  it  will  be  remembered,  said 
that  the  Puritans  disapproved  of  bear-baiting,  not  because 
it  gave  pain  to  the  bear,  but  because  it  gave  pleasure  to  the 
spectators.)  The  humor  of  Sudihras  is  not  of  the  finest.  The 
knight  and  the  squire  are  discomfited  in  broadly  comic  ad- 
ventures, hardly  removed  from  the  rough  physical  drolleries 
of  a  pantomime  or  circus.  The  deep  heart-laughter  of  Cer- 
vantes, the  pathos  on  which  his  humor  rests,  is,  of  course, 
not  to  be  looked  for  in  Butler.  But  he  had  wit  of  a  sharp, 
logical  kind,  and  his  style  surprises  with  all  manner  of  verbal 
antics.  He  is  almost  as  great  a  phrase-master  as  Pope, 
though  in  a  coarser  kind.  His  verse  is  a  smart  doggerel,  and 
his  poem  has  furnished  many  stock  sayings,  as  for  example, 

'Tia  strange  what  difference  there  can  be 
'Twixt  tweedle-dum  and  tweedle-dee. 

Hudibras  has  had  many  imitators,  not  the  least  successful  of 
whom  was  the  American  John  Trumbull,  in  his  revolution- 
ary satire,  M'Mngal,  some  couplets  of  which  are  generally 
quoted  as  Butler's,  as,  for  example. 

No  man  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law. 


124  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

The  rebound  against  Puritanism  is  seen  no  less  plainly 
in  the  drama  of  the  Restoration,  and  the  stage  now  took 
vengeance  for  its  enforced  silence  under  the  Protectorate. 
Two  theaters  were  opened  under  the  patronage,  respectively, 
of  the  king  and  of  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  York.  The 
manager  of  the  latter,  Sir  "SVilliam  Davenant — who  had 
fought  on  the  king's  side,  been  knighted  for  his  services, 
escaped  to  France,  and  was  afterward  captured  and  impris- 
oned in  England  for  two  years — had  managed  to  evade  the 
law  against  stage  plays  as  early  as  1656,  by  jiresenting  his 
Siege  of  Rhodes  as  an  "  opera,"  with  instrumental  music  and 
dialogue  in  recitative,  after  a  fashion  newly  sprung  up  in 
Italy.  This  he  brought  out  again  in  1661,  with  the  dialogue 
recast  into  riming  couplets  in  the  French  fashion.  Mova- 
ble painted  scenery  was  now  introduced  from  France,  and 
actresses  took  the  female  parts  formerly  played  by  boys. 
This  last  innovation  was  said  to  be  at  the  request  of 
the  king,  one  of  whose  mistresses,  the  famous  Nell  Gwynne, 
was  the  favorite  actress  at  the  King's  Theater. 

Upon  the  stage,  thus  reconstructed,  the  so-called  "clas- 
sical "  rules  of  the  French  theater  were  followed,  at  least  in 
theory.  The  Louis  XIV.  writers  were  not  purely  creative, 
like  Shakspere  or  his  contemporaries  in  England,  but  critical 
and  self-conscious.  The  Academy  had  been  formed  in  1636 
for  the  preservation  of  the  purity  of  the  French  language^ 
and  discussion  abounded  on  the  principles  and  methods  of 
literary  ai-t.  Corneille  not  only  wrote  tragedies,  but  essays 
on  tragedy,  and  one  in  particular  on  the  Three  Unities. 
Dryden  followed  his  example  in  his  JEssay  of  Dramatic 
Poesie  (1667),  in  which  he  treated  of  the  unities,  and  argued 
for  the  use  of  rime  in  tragedy  in  preference  to  blank  verse. 
His  own  practice  varied.  Most  of  his  tragedies  were  written 
in  rime,  but  in  the  best  of  them.  All  for  Love,  founded  on 
Shakspere's  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  he  returned  to  blank 
verse.     One  of  the  principles  of  the  classical  school  was  to 


From  the  Restoeation  to  Death  of  Pope.       125 

keep  comedy  and  tragedy  distinct.  The  tragic  dramatists  of 
the  Restoration,  Dryden,  Howard,  Settle,  Crowne,  Lee,  and 
others,  composed  what  they  called  "  heroic  plays,"  such  as 
the  Indian  Emperor,  the  Conquest  of  Granada,  the  Duke  of 
Lerma,  the  Empress  of  Morocco,  the  Destruction  of  Jerusa- 
lem., Nero,  and  the  Mival  Queens.  The  titles  of  these  pieces 
indicate  their  character.  Their  heroes  were  great  historic 
personages.  Subject  and  treatment  were  alike  remote  from 
nature  and  real  life.  The  diction  was  stilted  and  artificial, 
and  pompous  declamation  took  the  place  of  action  and  genu- 
ine passion.  The  tragedies  of  Racine  seem  chill  to  an 
Englishman  brought  up  on  Shakspere,  but  to  see  how  great 
an  artist  Racine  was,  in  his  own  somewhat  narrow  way,  one 
has  but  to  compare  his  Phedre,  or  Iphigenie,  with  Dryden's 
ranting  tragedy  of  Tyrannic  Love.  These  bombastic  heroic 
plays  were  made  the  subject  of  a  capital  burlesque,  the 
Rehearsal,  by  George  Yilliers,  Duke  of  Buckingham,  acted 
in  1671  at  the  King's  Theater.  The  indebtedness  of  the 
English  stage  to  the  French  did  not  stop  with  a  general 
adoption  of  its  dramatic  methods,  but  extended  to  direct 
imitation  and  translation.  Dryden's  comedy.  An  Evening's 
Love,  was  adapted  from  Thomas  Corneille's  Le  Feint  Astro- 
logue,  and  his  Sir  Martin  Mar-all,  from  Moliere's  L^Etourdi. 
Shadwell  borrowed  his  Miser  from  Moliere,  and  Otway  made 
versions  of  Racine's  B^rknice  and  Moliere's  Fourheries  de 
Scapin.  "VYycherley's  Country  Wife  and  Plain  Dealer 
although  not  translations,  were  based,  in  a  sense,  upon  Moli- 
ere's Ecole  des  Femmes  and  Le  Misanthrope.  The  only  one 
of  the  tragic  dramatists  of  the  Restoration  who  prolonged  the 
traditions  of  the  Elizabethan  stage  was  Otway,  whose  Ven- 
ice Preserved,  written  in  blank  verse,  still  keeps  the  boards. 
There  are  fine  passages  in  Dryden's  heroic  plays,  passages 
weighty  in  thought  and  nobly  sonorous  in  language.  There 
is  one  great  scene  (between  Antony  and  Yentidius)  in  his  All 
for  Love.     And  one,  at  least,  of  his  comedies,  the  Spanish 


126  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Friar^  is  skillfully  constructed.  But  his  nature  was  not  pli- 
able enough  for  the  drama,  and  he  acknowledged  that,  in 
writing  for  the  stage,  he  "  forced  his  genius." 

In  sharp  contrast  with  these  heroic  plays  was  the  comic 
drama  of  the  Restoration,  the  plays  of  Wycherley,  Killi- 
grew,  Etherege,  Farquhar,  Van  Brugh,  Congreve,  and 
others  ;  plays  like  the  Country  Wife,  the  Parson's  Wedding^ 
She  Would  if  She  Could,  the  Beaux'  Stratagem,  the  Relapse, 
and  the  Way  of  the  World.  These  were  in  prose,  and 
represented  the  gay  world  and  the  surface  of  fashionable 
life.  Amorous  intrigue  was  their  constantly  recurring 
theme.  Some  of  them  were  written  expressly  in  ridicule  of 
the  Puritans.  Such  was  the  Committee  of  Dryden's  brother- 
in-law,  Sir  Robert  Howard,  the  hero  of  which  is  a  distressed 
gentleman,  and  the  villain  a  London  cit,  and  president  of  the 
committee  appointed  by  Parliament  to  sit  upon  the  seques- 
tration of  the  estates  of  royalists.  Such  were  also  the 
Roundheads  and  the  Banished  Cavaliers  of  Mrs.  Aphra 
Behn,  who  was  a  female  spy  in  the  service  of  Charles  II.,  at 
Antwerp,  and  one  of  the  coarsest  of  the  Restoration 
comedians.  The  profession  of  piety  had  become  so  dis- 
agreeable that  a  shameless  cynicism  was  now  considered  the 
mark  of  a  gentleman.  The  ideal  hero  of  Wycherley  or 
Etherege  was  the  witty  young  profligate,  who  had  seen  life, 
and  learned  to  disbelieve  in  virtue.  His  highest  qualities 
were  a  contempt  for  cant,  physical  courage,  a  sort  of  spend- 
thrift generosity,  and  a  good-natured  readiness  to  back  up  a 
friend  in  a  quarrel,  or  an  amour.  Virtue  was  bourgeois — 
reserved  for  London  trades-people.  A  man  must  be  either  a 
rake  or  a  hypocrite.  The  gentlemen  were  rakes,  the  city 
people  were  hypocrites.  Their  wives,  however,  were  all  in 
love  with  the  gentlemen,  and  it  was  the  proper  thing  to 
seduce  them,  and  to  borrow  their  husbands'  money.  For  the 
first  and  last  time,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  the  English 
drama,  the  sympathy  of  the  audience  was  deliberately  sought 


From  the  Restobation  to  Death  of  Pope.       127 

for  the  seducer  and  the  rogue,  and  the  laugh  turned  against 
the  dishonored  husband  and  the  honest  man.  (Contrast  this 
with  Shakspere's  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.)  The  women 
were  represented  as  worse  than  the  men — scheming,  igno- 
rant, and  corrupt.  The  dialogue  in  the  best  of  these  plays 
was  easy,  lively,  and  witty  the  situations  in  some  of  them 
audacious  almost  beyond  belief.  Under  a  thin  varnish 
of  good  breeding,  the  sentiments  and  manners  were  really 
brutal.  The  loosest  gallants  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's 
theater  retain  a  fineness  of  feeling  and  tha.t  politesse  de  coeur 
which  marks  the  gentleman.  They  are  poetic  creatures, 
and  own  a  capacity  for  romantic  passion.  But  the  Manlys 
and  Homers  of  the  Restoration  comedy  have  a  prosaic, 
cold-blooded  profligacy  that  disgusts. 

Charles  Lamb,  in  his  ingenious  essay  on  "The  Artificial 
Comedy  of  the  Last  Century,"  apologized  for  the  Restora- 
tion stage,  on  the  ground  that  it  represented  a  world  of  whim 
and  unreality  in  which  the  ordinary  laws  of  morality  had  no 
application.  But  Macaulay  answered  truly,  that  at  no  time 
has  the  stage  been  closer  in  its  imitation  of  real  life.  The 
theater  of  Wycherley  and  Etherege  was  but  the  counterpart 
of  that  social  condition  which  we  read  of  in  Pepys's  Diary ^ 
and  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  Chevalier  de  Grammont.  This 
prose  comedy  of  manners  was  not,  indeed,  "  artificial "  at  all, 
in  the  sense  in  which "  the  contemporary  tragedy — the 
"  heroic  play" — was  artificial.  It  was,  on  the  contrary,  far 
more  natural,  and,  intellectually,  of  much  higher  value.  Li 
1698  Jeremy  Collier,  a  non-juring  Jacobite  clergyman,  pub- 
lished his  Short  View  of  the  Immorality  and  Profaneness  of 
the  English  Stage,  which  did  much  toward  reforming  the 
practice  of  the  dramatists.  The  formal  characteristics,  with- 
out the  immorality,  of  the  Restoration  comedy  re-appeared 
briefiy  in  Goldsmith's  She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  1772,  and 
Sheridan's  Bivals,  School  for  Scandal,  and  Critic,  1775-9;  our 
last   strictly  "  classical  "  comedies.     None  of  this  school  of 


128  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

English  comedians  approached  their  model,  Moliere.  He 
excelled  his  imitators  not  only  in  his  French  urbanity — the 
polished  wit  and  delicate  grace  of  his  style — but  in  the  dex- 
terous unfolding  of  his  plot,  and  in  the  wisdom  and  truth  of 
his  criticism  of  life,  and  his  insight  into  character.  It  is  a 
symptom  of  the  false  taste  of  the  age  that  Shakspere's  plays 
were  rewritten  for  the  Restoration  stage.  Davenant  made 
new  versions  of  Macbeth  and  Julius  Cmsar,  substituting  rime 
for  blank  verse.  In  conjunction  with  Dryden,  he  altered 
the  Tempest,  complicating  the  intrigue  by  the  introduction 
of  a  male  counterpart  to  Miranda  —  a  youth  who  had  never 
seen  a  woman.  Shadwell  "  improved "  Timon  of  Athens, 
and  Nahum  Tate  furnished  a  new  fifth  act  to  King  Lear, 
which  turned  the  play  into  a  comedy  !  In  the  prologue  to 
his  doctored  version  of  Troilus  and  Cressida,  Dryden  made 
the  ghost  of  Shakspere  speak  of  himself  as 

Untaught,  unpracticed  in  a  barbarous  age. 

Thomas  Rymer,  whom  Pope  pronounced  a  good  critic,  was 
very  severe  upon  Shakspere  in  his  Hemarks  on  the  Trage- 
dies of  the  Last  Age ;  and  in  his  Short  View  of  Tragedy, 
1693,  he  said,  "In  the  neighing  of  a  horse  or  in  the  growling 
of  a  mastiff,  there  is  more  humanity  than,  many  times, 
in  the  tragical  flights  of  Shakspere."  "To  Deptford  by 
water,"  writes  Pepys,  in  his  diary  for  August  20,  1666, 
"reading  Othello,  Moor  of  Venice;  which  I  ever  here- 
tofore esteemed  a  mighty  good  play ;  but,  having  so 
lately  read  the  Adventures  of  Mve  Hours,  it  seems  a  mean 
thing." 

In  undramatic  poetry  the  new  school,  both  in  England  and 
in  France,  took  its  point  of  departure  in  a  reform  against 
the  extravagances  of  the  Marinists,  or  conceited  poets, 
specially  represented  in  England  by  Donne  and  Cowley. 
The  new  poets,  both  in  their  theory  and  practice,  insisted 
upon   correctness,   clearness,    polish,    moderation,  and  good 


Fbom  the  Restoratiox  to  Death  of  Pope.       129 

sense.  Boileau's  JO  Art  Poetique,  1673,  inspired  by  Horace's 
Ars  Poetica,  was  a  treatise  in  verse  upon  the  rules  of  correct 
composition,  and  it  gave  the  law  in  criticism  for  over  a 
century,  not  only  in  France,  but  in  Germany  and  England. 
It  gave  English  poetry  a  didactic  turn  and  started  the  fash- 
ion of  writing  critical  essays  in  riming  couplets.  The  Earl 
of  Mulgrave  published  two  "  poems  "  of  this  kind,  an  Essay 
on  Satire^  and  an  PJssay  on  Poetry.  The  Earl  of  Roscom- 
mon—  who,  said  Addison,  "makes  even  rules  a  noble 
poetry" — made  a  metrical  version  of  Horace's  Ars  Poetica^ 
and  wrote  an  original  Essay  on  Translated  Verse.  Of  the 
same  kind  were  Addison's  epistle  to  Sacheverel,  entitled  An 
Account  of  the  Greatest  English  Poets,  and  Pope's  Essay  on 
Criticism,  1711,  which  was  nothing  more  than  versified 
maxims  of  rhetoric,  put  with  Pope's  usual  point  and  brill- 
iancy. The  classicism  of  the  18th  century,  it  has  been  said, 
was  a  classicism  in  red  heels  and  a  periwig.  It  was  Latin 
rather  than  Greek  ;  it  turned  to  the  least  imaginative  side  of 
Latin  literature  and  found  its  models,  not  in  Vergil,  Catullus, 
and  Lucretius,  but  in  the  satires,  epistles,  and  didactic 
pieces  of  Juvenal,  Horace,  and  Persius. 

The  chosen  medium  of  the  new  poetry  was  the  heroic 
couplet.  This  had,  of  course,  been  used  before  by  English 
poets  as  far  back  as  Chaucer.  The  greater  part  of  the 
Canterbury  Tales  was  written  in  heroic  couplets.  But  noAV 
a  new  strength  and  precision  were  given  to  the  familiar 
measure  by  imprisoning  the  sense  within  the  limit  of  the 
couplet,  and  by  treating  each  line  as  also  a  unit  in  itself. 
Edmund  Waller  had  written  verse  of  this  kind  as  early  as 
the  reign  of  Charles  I.  He,  said  Dry  den,  "  first  showed  us 
to  conclude  the  sense  most  commonly  in  distichs,  which,  in 
the  verse  of  those  before  him,  runs  on  for  so  many  lines  to- 
gether that  the  reader  is  out  of  breath  to  overtake  it."  Sir 
John  Denhara,  also,  in  his  Cooper's  Hill,  1643,  had  written 
such  verse  as  this  : 


130  Fbom  Chaucer  to  TENinrsoN-. 

0,  could  I  flow  like  thee,  and  make  thy  stream 
My  great  example  as  it  is  my  theme  1 
Though  deep  yet  clear,  though  gentle  yet  not  dull, 
Strong  without  rage,  without  o'erflowing  fulL 

Here  we  have  the  regular  flow,  and  the  nice  balance  between 
the  first  and  second  member  of  each  couplet,  and  the  first 
and  second  part  of  each  line,  which  characterized  the  verse 
of  Dryden  and  Pope. 

Waller  was  smooth,  but  Dryden  taught  to  join 
The  varying  verse,  the  full  resounding  line, 
The  long  resounding  march  and  energy  divine. 

Thus  wrote  Pope,  using  for  the  nonce  the  triplet  and  alex- 
andrine by  which  Dryden  frequently  varied  the  couplet. 
Pope  himself  added  a  greater  neatness  and  polish  to  Dry- 
den's  verse  and  brought  the  system  to  such  monotonous  per- 
fection that  he  "  made  poetry  a  mere  mechanic  art." 

The  lyrical  poetry  of  this  generation  was  almost  entirely 
worthless.  The  dissolute  wits  of  Charles  the  Second's  court, 
Sedley,  Rochester,  Sackville,  and  the  "mob  of  gentlemen 
who  wrote  with  ease,"  threw  off  a  few  amatory  trifles ;  but 
the  age  was  not  spontaneous  or  sincere  enough  for  genuine 
song.  Cowley  introduced  the  Pindaric  ode,  a  highly  artifi- 
cial form  of  the  lyric,  in  which  the  language  was  tortured 
into  a  kind  of  spurious  grandeur,  and  the  meter  teased  into  a 
sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing.  Cowley's  Pindarics 
were  filled  with  something  which  passed  for  fire,  but  has  now 
utterly  gone  out.  Nevertheless,  the  fashion  spread,  and  "  he 
who  could  do  nothing  else,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "  could  write 
like  Pindar."  The  best  of  these  odes  was  Dryden's  famous 
Alexander's  Feast,  written  for  a  celebration  of  St.  Cecilia's 
day  by  a  musical  club.  To  this  same  fashion,  also,  we  owe 
Gray's  two  fine  odes,  the  Progress  of  Poesy  and  the  Bard. 
written  a  half-century  later. 

Dryden  was  not  so  much  a  great  poet  as  a  solid  thinker, 
with  a  splendid  mastery  of  expression,  who  used  his  ener- 


Fbom  the  Rksto ration  to  Death  of  Pope.       131 

getic  verse  as  a  vehicle  for  political  argument  and  satire. 
His  first  noteworthy  poem,  Annus  Mirahilis,  1667,  was  a  nar- 
rative of  the  public  events  of  the  year  1666;  namely,  the 
Dutch  war  and  the  great  fire  of  London.  The  subject  of 
Absalom  and  Ahitophel — the  first  part  of  which  appeared  in 
1681  —  was  the  alleged  plot  of  the  Whig  leader,  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury,  to  defeat  the  succession  of  the  Duke  of  York, 
afterward  James  II.,  by  securing  the  throne  to  Monmouth,  a 
natural  son  of  Charles  II.  The  parallel  afforded  by  the  story 
of  Absalom's  revolt  against  David  was  wrought  out  by  Dry- 
den  with  admirable  ingenuity  and  keeping.  He  was  at  his 
best  in  satirical  character-sketches,  such  as  the  brilliant 
portraits  in  this  poem  of  Shaftesbury,  as  the  false  counselor 
Ahitophel,  and  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  as  Zimri.  The 
latter  was  Dry  den's  reply  to  the  Rehearsal..  Absalom  and 
Ahitophel  was  followed  by  the  Medal,  a  continuation  of  the 
same  subject,  and  Mac  Flecknoe,  a  personal  onslaught  on  the 
"  true  blue  Protestant  poet "  Thomas  Shadwell,  a  political 
and  literary  foe  of  Dryden.  Flecknoe,  an  obscure  Irish 
poetaster,  being  about  to  retire  from  the  throne  of  dunce- 
dom,  resolved  to  settle  the  succession  upon  his  son,  Shadwell, 
whose  claims  to  the  inheritance  are  vigorously  asserted. 

The  rest  to  some  faint  meaning  make  pretense, 
But  Shadwell  never  deviates  into  sense.  .  .  . 
The  midwife  laid  her  hand  on  his  thick  skull 
"With  this  prophetic  blessing — Be  thou  dull. 

Dryden  is  our  first  great  satirist.  The  formal  satire  had 
been  written  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  by  Donne,  and  by 
Joseph  Hall,  Bishop  of  Exeter,  and  subsequently  by  Mars- 
ton,  the  dramatist,  by  Wither,  Marvell,  and  others  ;  but  all 
of  these  failed  through  an  over  violence  of  language,  and  a 
purpose  too  pronouncedly  moral.  They  had  no  lightness  of 
touch,  no  irony  and  mischief.  They  bore  down  too  hard, 
imitated  Juvenal,  and  lashed  English  society  in  terms  befit- 
ting the  corruption   of  imperial   Rome.     They   denounced, 


132  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

instructed,  preached,  did  every  thing  but  satirize.  The 
satirist  must  raise  a  laugh.  Donne  and  Hall  abused  men 
in  classes ;  priests  were  worldly,  lawyers  greedy,  courtiers 
obsequious,  etc.  But  the  easy  scorn  of  Dryden  and  the 
delightful  malice  of  Pope  gave  a  pungent  personal  interest 
to  their  sarcasm,  infinitely  more  effective  than  these  com- 
monplaces of  satire.  Dryden  was  as  happy  in  controversy 
as  in  satire,  and  is  unexcelled  in  the  power  to  reason  in  verse. 
His  Heligo  Laid,  1682,  was  a  poem  in  defense  of  the  English 
Church.  But  when  James  H.  came  to  the  throne  Dryden 
turned  Catholic  and  wrote  the  Hind  and  Panther,  1687,  to 
vindicate  his  new  belief.  Dryden  had  the  misfortune  to  be 
dependent  upon  royal  patronage  and  upon  a  corrupt  stage. 
He  sold  his  pen  to  the  court,  and  in  his  comedies  he  was 
heavily  and  deliberately  lewd,  a  sin  which  he  afterward 
acknowledged  and  regretted.  Milton's  "  soul  was  like  a  star 
and  dwelt  apart,"  but  Dryden  wrote  for  the  trampling  mul- 
titude. He  had  a  coarseness  of  moral  fiber,  but  was  not 
malignant  in  his  satire,  being  of  a  large,  careless,  and  for- 
getting nature.  He  had  that  masculine,  enduring  cast  of 
mind  which  gathers  heat  and  clearness  from  motion,  and 
grows  better  with  age.  His  Fables — modernizations  from 
Chaucer  and  translations  from  Boccaccio,  written  the  year 
before  he  died — are  among  his  best  works. 

Dryden  is  also  our  first  ciitic  of  any  importance.  His 
critical  essays  were  mostly  written  as  prefaces  or  dedications 
to  his  poems  and  plays.  But  his  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesie, 
which  Dr.  Johnson  called  our  "  first  regular  and  valuable 
treatise  on  the  art  of  writing,"  was  in  the  shape  of  a  Pla- 
tonic dialogue.  When  not  misled  by  the  French  classicism 
of  his  day,  Dryden  was  an  admirable  critic,  full  of  penetra- 
tion and  sound  sense.  He  was  the  earliest  writer,  too,  of 
modem  literary  prose.  If  the  imitation  of  French  models 
was  an  injury  to  poetry  it  was  a  benefit  to  prose.  The  best 
modem   prose  is   French,  and  it   was  the  essayists  of    the 


From  the  Rkstoeation  to  Death  of  Popb,       133 

gallicised  Restoration  age — Cowley,  Sir  William  Temple, 
and  above  all,  Dryden — who  gave  modern  English  prose  that 
simplicity,  directness,  and  colloquial  air  which  marks  it  off 
from  the  more  artificial  diction  of  Milton,Taylor  and  Browne. 

A  few  books  whose  shaping  influences  lay  in  the  past 
belong  by  their  date  to  this  period.  John  Bunyan,  a  poor 
tinker,  whose  reading  was  almost  wholly  in  the  Bible  and 
Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs,  imprisoned  for  twelve  years  in  Bed- 
ford jail  for  preaching  at  conventicles,  wrote  and,  in  1678, 
published  his  Pilgrini's  Progress,  the  greatest  of  religious 
allegories.  Bunyan's  spiritual  experiences  were  so  real  to 
him  that  they  took  visible  concrete  shape  in  his  imagination 
as  men,  women,  cities,  landscapes.  It  is  the  simplest,  the 
most  transparent  of  allegories.  Unlike  the  Faerie  Queene, 
the  story  of  Pilgrim's  Progress  has  no  reason  for  existing 
apart  from  its  inner  meaning,  and  yet  its  reality  is  so  vivid 
that  children  read  of  Vanity  Fair  and  the  Slough  of  Despond 
and  Doubting  Castle  and  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death 
with  the  same  belief  with  which  they  read  of  Crusoe's  cave 
or  Aladdin's  palace. 

It  is  a  long  step  from  the  Bedford  tinker  to  the  cultivated 
poet  of  Paradise  Lost.  They  represent  the  poles  of  the  Puritan 
party.  Yet  it  may  admit  of  a  doubt  whether  the  Puritan 
epic  is,  in  essentials,  as  vital  and  original  a  work  as  the  Puritan 
allegory.  They  both  came  out  quietly  and  made  little  noise  at 
first.  But  the  Pilgrini's  Progress  got  at  once  into  circulation, 
and  hardly  a  single  copy  of  the  first  edition  remains.  Milton, 
too — who  received  ten  pounds  for  the  copyright  of  Paradise 
Lost — seemingly  found  that  "  fit  audience  though  few  "  for 
M'hich  he  prayed,  as  his  poem  reached  its  second  impression 
in  five  years  (1672).  Dryden  visited  him  in  his  retirement 
and  asked  leave  to  turn  it  into  rime  and  put  it  on  the  stage 
as  an  opera.  "  Ay,"  said  Milton,  good  humoredly,  "  you  may 
tag  my  verses."  And  accordingly  they  appeared,  duly  tagged, 
in  Dryden's  operatic  masque,  the  State  of  Innocence.    In  thi& 


134  From  Chaucek  to  Tennyson. 

startling  conjunction  we  have  the  two  ages  in  a  nutshell: 
the  Commonwealth  was  an  epic,  the  Restoration  an  opera. 

The  literary  period  covered  by  the  life  of  Pope,  1688-1744, 
is  marked  off  by  no  distinct  line  from  the  generation  before 
it.  Taste  continued  to  be  governed  by  the  precepts  of 
Boileau  and  the  French  classical  school.  Poetry  remained 
chiefly  didactic  and  satirical,  and  satire  in  Pope's  hands  was 
more  pei'sonal  even  than  in  Dryden's,  and  addressed  itself  less 
to  public  issues.  The  literature  of  the  "  Augustan  age  "  of 
Queen  Anne  (1702-1714)  was  still  more  a  literature  of  the 
town  and  of  fashionable  society  than  that  of  the  Restoration 
had  been.  It  was  also  closely  involved  with  party  struggles 
of  Whig  and  Tory,  and  the  ablest  pens  on  either  side  were 
taken  into  alliance  by  the  political  leaders.  Swift  was  in 
high  favor  with  the  Tory  ministers,  Oxford  and  Bolingbroke, 
and  his  pamphlets,  the  Public  Spirit  of  the  "Whigs  and  the 
Conduct  of  the  Allies,  were  rewarded  with  the  deanery  of 
St.  Patrick's,  Dublin.  Addison  became  secretary  of  state 
under  a  Whig  government.  Prior  was  in  the  diplomatic 
service.  Daniel  De  Foe,  the  author  of  Robinson  Crusoe, 
1719,  was  a  prolific  political  writer,  conducted  his  Mevieio  in 
the  interest  of  the  Whigs,  and  was  imprisoned  and  pilloried 
for  his  ironical  pamphlet,  The  Shortest  Way  with  the  Dis- 
senters. Steele,  who  was  a  violent  writer  on  the  Whig  side, 
held  various  public  offices,  such  as  Commissioner  of  Stamps, 
and  Commissioner  for  Forfeited  Estates,  and  sat  in  Parlia- 
ment. After  the  Revolution  of  1688  the  manners  and  morals 
of  English  society  were  somewhat  on  the  mend.  The  court 
of  William  and  Mary,  and  of  their  successor,  Queen  Anne, 
set  no  such  example  of  open  profligacy  as  that  of  Charles  11. 
But  there  was  much  hard  drinking,  gambling,  dueling,  and 
intrigue  in  London,  and  vice  was  fashionable  till  Addison 
partly  preached  and  partly  laughed  it  down  in  the  Spectator. 
The  women  were  mostly  frivolous  and  uneducated,  and  not 
unfrequently  fast.     They  are  spoken  of  with  systematic  dis- 


From  the  Rkstoeatiok  to  Death  of  Pope.       135 

respect  by  nearly  every  writer  of  the  time,  except  Steele. 
"  Every  woman,"  wrote  Pope,  "  is  at  heart  a  rake."  The 
reading  public  had  now  become  large  enough  to  make  letters 
a  profession.  Dr.  Johnson  said  that  Pope  was  the  first 
writer  in  whose  case  the  book-seller  took  the  place  of  the 
patron.  His  translation  of  Homer,  published  by  subscrip- 
tion, brought  him  between  eight  and  nine  thousand  pounds 
and  made  him  independent.  But  the  activity  of  the  press 
produced  a  swarm  of  poorly-paid  hack-writers,  penny-a- 
liners,  who  lived  from  hand  to  mouth  and  did  small  literary 
jobs  to  order.  Many  of  these  inhabited  Grub  Street,  and 
their  lampoons  against  Pope  and  others  of  their  more  suc- 
cessful rivals  called  out  Pope's  JDunciad,  or  epic  of  the  dunces, 
by  way  of  retaliation.  The  politics  of  the  time  were  sordid, 
and  consisted  mainly  of  an  ignoble  scramble  for  office.  The 
Whigs  were  fighting  to  maintain  the  Act  of  Succession  in 
favor  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  and  the  Tories  were  secretly 
intriguing  with  the  exiled  Stuarts.  Many  of  the  leaders, 
such  as  the  great  Whig  champion,  John  Churchill,  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  were  without  political  principle  or  even  per- 
sonal honesty.  The  Church,  too,  was  in  a  condition  of 
spiritual  deadness.  Bishoprics  and  livings  were  sold,  and 
given  to  political  favorites.  Clergymen,  like  Swift  and 
Lawrence  Sterne,  were  worldly  in  their  lives  and  immoral  in 
their  writings,  and  were  practically  unbelievers.  The  grow- 
ing religious  skepticism  appeared  in  the  Deist  controversy. 
Numbers  of  men  in  high  position  were  Deists  ;  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury,  for  example,  and  Pope's  brilliant  friend,  Henry 
St.  John,  Lord  Bolingbroke,  the  head  of  the  Tory  minis- 
try, whose  political  writings  had  much  influence  upon  his 
young  French  acquaintance,  Voltaire.  Pope  was  a  Roman 
Catholic,  though  there  was  little  to  show  it  in  his  writings, 
and  the  underlying  thought  of  his  famous  Essay  on  Man  was 
furnished  him  by  Bolingbroke.  The  letters  of  the  cold- 
hearted  Chesterfield  to  his  son  were  accepted  as  a  manual  of 


136  From  Chaucee  to  Tennysox. 

conduct,    and    La    Rochefoucauld's    cynical    maxims    were 
quoted  as  authority  on  life  and  human  nature.  Said  Swift: 

As  Rochefoucauld  his  maxima  drew 
From  nature,  I  believe  them  true. 
They  argue  no  corrupted  mind 
In  him ;  the  fault  is  in  mankind. 

The  succession  which  Dryden  had  willed  to  Congreve  was 
taken  up  by  Alexander  Pope.  He  was  a  man  quite  unlike 
Dryden — sickly,  deformed,  morbidly  precocious,  and  spiteful; 
nevertheless  he  joined  on  to  and  continued  Dryden.  He  was 
more  careful  in  his  literary  workmanship  than  his  great  fore- 
runner, and  in  his  Moral  Essays  and  Satires  he  brought  the 
Horatian  epistle  in  verse,  the  formal  satire  and  that  species 
of  didactic  poem  of  which  Boileau  had  given  the  first  exam- 
ple, to  an  exquisite  perfection  of  finish  and  verbal  art.  Dry- 
den had  translated  Vergil,  and  so  Pope  translated  Homer. 
The  throne  of  the  dunces,  which  Dryden  had  conferred  upon 
Shadwell,  Pope,  in  his  Dunciad,  passed  on  to  two  of  his  own 
literary  foes,  Theobald  and  Colley  Gibber.  There  is  a  great 
waste  of  strength  in  this  elaborate  squib,  and  most  of  the 
petty  writers,  whose  names  it  has  preserved,  as  has  been  said, 
like  flies  in  amber,  are  now  quite  unknown.  But,  although 
we  have  to  read  it  with  notes,  to  get  the  point  of  its  allu- 
sions, it  is  easy  to  see  what  execution  it  must  have  done  at 
the  time,  and  it  is  impossible  to  withhold  admiration  from 
the  wit,  the  wickedness,  the  triumphant  mischief  of  the  thing. 
In  the  Epistle  to  Dr.  Arhuthnot,  the  satirical  sketch  of  Addi- 
son— who  had  offended  Pope  by  praising  a  rival  translation 
of  Homer — is  as  brilliant  as  any  thing  of  the  kind  in  Dryden. 
Pope's  very  malignity  made  his  sting  sharper  than  Dryden's. 
He  secreted  venom,  and  worked  out  his  revenges  deliberately, 
bringing  all  the  resources  of  his  art  to  bear  upon  the  question 
of  how  to  give  the  most  pain  most  cleverly. 

Pope's  masterpiece  is,  perhaps,  the  Rape  of  the  Lock,  a 
mock    heroic    poem,  a  "dwarf    Iliad^''  recounting,  in   five 


From  the  Restobation  to  Death  of  Pope.       137 

cantos,  a  society  quarrel,  which  arose  from  Lord  Petre's 
cutting  a  lock  of  hair  from  the  head  of  Mrs.  Arabella  Ter- 
mor. Boileau,  in  his  Lutrin,  had  treated  with  the  same  epic 
dignity  a  dispute  over  the  placing  of  the  reading-desk  in  a 
parish  church.  Pope  was  the  Homer  of  the  drawing-room, 
the  boudoir,  the  tea-urn,  the  ombre-party,  the  sedan-chair,  the 
parrot  cage,  and  the  lap-dogs.  This  poem,  in  its  sparkle  and 
airy  grace,  is  the  topmost  blossom  of  a  highly  artificial  society, 
the  quintessence  of  whatever  poetry  was  possible  in  those 

Tea-cup  times  of  hood  and  hoop, 
And  when  the  patch  was  worn, 

with  whose  decorative  features,  at  least,  the  recent  Queen 
Anne  revival  has  made  this  generation  familiar.  It  may  be 
said  of  it,  as  Thackery  said  of  Gay's  pastorals  :  "  It  is  to 
poetry  what  charming  little  Dresden  china  figures  are  to 
sculpture,  graceful,  minikin,  fantastic,  with  a  certain  beauty 
always  accompanying  them."  The  Mape  of  the  Lock,  per- 
haps, stops  short  of  beauty,  but  it  attains  elegance  and  pret- 
tiness  in  a  supreme  degree.  In  imitation  of  the  gods  and 
goddesses  in  the  Iliad,  who  intermeddle  for  or  against  the 
human  characters.  Pope  introduced  the  Sylphs  of  the  Rosi- 
crucian  philosophy.  We  may  measure  the  distance  between 
imagination  and  fancy,  if  we  will  compare  these  little  filagree 
creatures  with  Shakspere's  elves,  whose  occupation  it  was 

To  tread  the  ooze  of  the  salt  deep, 

Or  run  upon  the  sharp  wind  of  the  north,  .  .  . 

Or  on  the  beached  margcnt  of  the  sea 

To  dance  their  ringlets  to  the  whispering  wind. 

Very  different  are  the  ofiices  of  Pope's  fays  : 

Our  humble  province  is  to  tend  the  fair ; 
Not  a  less  pleasing,  though  less  glorious,  care  j 
To  save  the  powder  from  too  rude  a  gale. 
Nor  let  the  imprisoned  essences  exhale.  .  .  . 
Nay  oft  in  dreams  invention  we  bestow 
To  change  a  flounce  or  add  a  furbelow. 


138  From  Chaucer  to  Tenisttson. 

Pope  was  not  a  great  poet ;  it  lias  been  doubted  whether 
he  was  a  poet  at  all.  He  does  not  touch  the  heart,  or  stimu- 
late the  imagination,  as  the  true  poet  always  does.  In  the 
poetry  of  nature,  and  the  poetry  of  passion,  he  was  alto- 
gether impotent.  His  Windsor  Forest  and  his  Pastorals  are 
artificial  and  false,  not  written  with  "  the  eye  upon  the  ob- 
ject." His  epistle  of  Eloisa  to  Abelard  is  declamatory  and 
academic,  and  leaves  the  reader  cold.  The  only  one  of  his 
poems  which  is  at  all  possessed  with  feeling  is  his  pathetic 
Elegy  to  the  Memory  of  an  Unfortunate  Lady.  But  he  was 
a  great  literary  artist.  Within  the  cramped  and  starched 
regularity  of  the  heroic  couplet,  which  the  fashion  of  the 
time  and  his  own  habit  of  mind  imposed  upon  him,  he  secured 
the  largest  variety  of  modulation  and  emphasis  of  which  that 
verse  was  capable.  He  used  antithesis,  periphrasis,  and  climax 
with  great  skill.  His  example  dominated  English  poetry  for 
nearly  a  century,  and  even  now,  when  a  poet  like  Dr.  Holmes, 
for  example,  would  write  satire  or  humorous  verse  of  a  dig- 
nified kind,  he  turns  instinctively  to  the  measure  and  manner 
of  Pope.  He  was  not  a  consecutive  thinker,  like  Dryden, 
and  cared  less  about  the  truth  of  his  thought  than  about  the 
pointedness  of  its  expression.  His  language  was  closer- 
grained  than  Dry  den's.  His  great  art  was  the  art  of  putting 
things.  He  is  more  quoted  than  any  other  English  poet  but 
Shakspere.  He  struck  the  average  intelligence,  the  common 
sense  of  English  readers,  and  furnished  it  with  neat,  portable 
formulas,  so  that  it  no  longer  needed  to  "  vent  its  observation 
in  mangled  terms,"  but  could  pour  itself  out  compactly,  artist- 
ically in  little  ready-made  molds.  But  this  high-wrought  brill- 
iancy, this  unceasing  point,  soon  fatigue.  His  poems  read  like 
a  series  of  epigrams  ;  and  every  line  has  a  hit  or  an  effect. 

From  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  date  the  beginnings  of  the 
periodical  essay.  Newspapers  had  been  published  since  the 
time  of  the  civil  war;  at  first  irregularly,  and  then  regularly. 
But  no  literature  of  permanent  value  appeared  in  periodical 


Fbom  the  Restobation  to  Death  op  Pope.       139 

form  until  Richard  Steele  started  the  Tatler,  in  1 709.  In  this 
he  was  soon  joined  by  his  friend,  Joseph  Addison ;  and  in  its 
successor,  the  Spectator,  the  first  number  of  which  was  issued 
March  1, 1711,  Addison's  contributions  outnumbered  Steele's. 
The  Tatler  was  published  on  three,  the  Spectator  on  six,  days 
of  the  week.  The  Tatler  gave  political  news,  but  each  num- 
ber of  the  Spectator  consisted  of  a  single  essay.  The  object  of 
these  periodicals  was  to  reflect  the  passing  humors  of  the  time, 
and  to  satirize  the  follies  and  minor  immoralities  of  the  town. 
"  I  shall  endeavor,"  wrote  Addison,  in  the  tenth  paper  of  the 
Spectator,  "  to  enliven  morality  with  wit,  and  to  temper  wit 
with  morality.  ...  It  was  said  of  Socrates  that  he  brought 
Philosophy  down  from  Heaven  to  inhabit  among  men ;  and  I 
shall  be  ambitious  to  have  it  said  of  me  that  I  have  brought 
Philosophy  out  of  closets  and  libraries,  schools  and  colleges, 
to  dwell  in  clubs  and  assemblies,  at  tea-tables  and  in  coffee- 
houses." Addison's  satire  was  never  personal.  He  was  a 
moderate  man,  and  did  what  he  could  to  restrain  Steele's  in- 
temperate party  zeal.  His  character  was  dignified  and  pure, 
and  his  strongest  emotion  seems  to  have  been  his  religious 
feeling.  One  of  his  contemporaries  called  him  "  a  parson  in 
a  tie  wig,"  and  he  wrote  several  excellent  hymns.  His  mis- 
sion was  that  of  censor  of  the  public  taste.  Sometimes  he  lect- 
ured and  sometimes  he  preached,  and  in  his  Saturday  papers 
he  brought  his  wide  reading  and  nice  scholarship  into  service 
for  the  instruction  of  his  readers.  Such  was  the  series  of  essays 
in  which  he  gave  an  elaborate  review  of  Paradise  Lost.  Such 
also  was  his  famous  paper,  the  Vision  of  Mirza,  an  oriental 
allegory  of  human  life.  The  adoption  of  this  slightly  peda- 
gogic tone  was  justified  by  the  prevalent  ignorance  and  fri- 
volity of  the  age.  But  the  lighter  portions  of  the  Spectator 
are  those  which  have  worn  the  best.  Their  style  is  at  once 
correct  and  easy,  and  it  is  as  a  humorist,  a  sly  observer  of  man- 
ners, and,  above  all;  a  delightful  talker,  that  Addison  is  best 
known  to  posterity.     In  the  personal  sketches  of  the  mem- 


140  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

bers  of  the  Spectator  Club,  of  Will.  Honeycomb,  Captain 
Sentry,  Sir  Andrew  Freeport,  and,  above  all.  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley,  the  quaint  and  honest  country  gentleman,  may  be 
found  the  nucleus  of  the  modern  prose  fiction  of  character. 
Addison's  humor  is  always  a  trifle  grave.  There  is  no  whimsy, 
no  frolic  in  it,  as  in  Sterne  or  Lamb.  "  He  thinks  justly,"  said 
Dr.  Johnson,  "  but  he  thinks  faintly."  The  Spectator  had  a 
host  of  followers,  from  the  somewhat  heavy  Rambler  and 
Idler  of  Johnson,  down  to  the  Salmagundi  papers  of  our  own 
Irving,  who  was,  perhaps,  Addison's  latest  and  best  literary 
descendant.  In  his  own  age  Addison  made  some  figure  as  a 
poet  and  dramatist.  His  Campaign,  celebrating  the  victory  of 
Blenheim,  had  one  much  admired  couplet,  in  which  Marl- 
borough was  likened  to  the  angel  of  tempest,  who, 

Pleased  the  Almighty's  orders  to  perform, 
Rides  in  the  whirlwind  and  directs  the  storm. 

His  stately,  classical  tragedy,  Cato,  which  was  acted  at  Drury 
Lane  Theater  in  1712,  with  immense  applause,  was  pro- 
nounced by  Dr.  Johnson  "  unquestionably  the  noblest  pro- 
duction of  Addison's  genius."  Is  is,  notwithstanding,  cold 
and  tedious,  as  a  whole,  though  it  has  some  fine  declama- 
tory passages — in  particular  the    soliloquy  of  Cato   in  the 

fifth  act — 

It  must  be  so :  Plato,  thou  reasonest  well,  etc. 

The  greatest  of  the  Queen  Anne  wits,  and  one  of  the  most 
savage  and  powerful  satirists  that  ever  lived,  was  Jonathan 
Swift.  As  secretary  in  the  family  of  Sir  William  Temple, 
and  domestic  chaplain  to  the  Earl  of  Berkeley,  he  had  known 
in  youth  the  bitterness  of  poverty  and  dependence.  Afterward 
he  wrote  himself  into  influence  with  the  Tory  ministry,  and 
was  promised  a  bishopric,  but  was  put  off  with  the  deanery 
of  St.  Patrick's,  and  retired  to  Ireland  to  "  die  like  a  poisoned 
rat  in  a  hole."  His  life  was  made  tragical  by  the  forecast  of 
the  madness  which  finally  overtook  him.     "  The  stage  dark- 


From  the  Restoeatiost  to  Death  of  Pope.       141 

ened,"  said  Scott,  "  ere  the  curtain  fell,"  Insanity  deepened 
into  idiocy  and  a  hideous  silence,  and  for  three  years  before 
his  death  he  spoke  hardly  ever  a  word.  He  had  directed 
that  his  tombstone  should  bear  the  inscription,  Uhi  saeva 
indignatio  cor  ulterius  lacerare  nequit.  "  So  great  a  man  he 
seems  to  me,"  wrote  Thackeray,  "  that  thinking  of  him  is 
like  thinking  of  an  empire  falling."  Swift's  first  noteworthy 
publication  was  his  Tale  of  a  Tub,  1704,  a  satire  on  religious 
differences.  But  his  great  work  was  Gulliver's  Travels,  1726, 
the  book  in  which  his  hate  and  scorn  of  mankind,  and  the 
long  rage  of  mortified  pride  and  thwarted  ambition  found 
their  fullest  expression.  Children  read  the  voyages  to  Lilli- 
put  and  Brobdingnag,  to  the  flying  island  of  Laputa  and  the 
country  of  the  Houyhnhnms,  as  they  read  Mobinson  Crusoe, 
as  stories  of  wonderful  adventure.  Swift  had  all  of  De  Foe's 
realism,  his  power  of  giving  veri-similitude  to  his  narrative 
by  the  invention  of  a  vast  number  of  small,  exact,  consistent 
details.  But  underneath  its  fairy  tales  Gulliver's  Travels  is 
a  satire,  far  more  radical  than  any  of  Dryden's  or  Pope's, 
because  directed,  not  against  particular  parties  or  persons, 
but  against  human  nature.  In  his  account  of  Lilliput  and 
Brobdingnag,  Swift  tries  to  show  that  human  greatness,  good- 
ness, beauty  disappear  if  the  scale  be  altered  a  little.  If  men 
were  six  inches  high  instead  of  six  feet,  their  wars,  govern- 
ments, science,  religion — all  their  institutions,  in  fine,  and  all 
the  courage,  wisdom,  and  virtue  by  which  these  have  been 
built  up,  would  appear  laughable.  On  the  other  hand,  if  they 
were  sixty  feet  high  instead  of  six,  they  would  become  disgust- 
ing. The  complexion  of  the  finest  ladies  would  show  blotch- 
es, hairs,  excrescences,  and  an  overpowering  effluvium  would 
breathe  from  the  pores  of  the  skin.  Finally,  in  his  loathsome 
caricature  of  mankind,  as  Yahoos,  he  contrasts  them,  to  their 
shame,  with  the  beasts,  and  sets  instinct  above  reason. 

The  method  of  Swift's  satire  was  grave   irony.     Among 
his  minor  writings  in  this  kind  are  his  Argument  against 


142        From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Abolishing  Christianity,  his  Modest  Proposal  for  utilizing 
the  surplus  population  of  Ireland  by  eating  the  babies  of  the 
poor,  and  his  Predictions  of  Isaac  Pickerstaff.  In  the  last 
he  predicted  the  death  of  one  Partridge,  an  almanac  maker, 
at  a  certain  day  and  hour.  When  the  time  set  was  past,  he 
published  a  minute  account  of  Partridge's  last  moments;  and 
when  the  subject  of  this  excellent  fooling  printed  an  indig- 
nant denial  of  his  own  death,  Swift  answered  very  temper- 
ately, proving  that  he  was  dead  and  remonstrating  with 
him  on  the  violence  of  his  language.  "  To  call  a  man  a  fool 
and  villain,  an  impudent  fellow,  only  for  differing  from  him 
in  a  point  merely  speculative,  is,  in  my  humble  opinion,  a 
very  improper  style  for  a  person  of  his  education."  Swift 
wrote  verses  as  well  as  prose,  but  their  motive  was  the 
reverse  of  poetical.  His  gross  and  cynical  humor  vul- 
garized whatever  it  touched.  He  leaves  us  no  illusions,  and 
not  only  strips  his  subject,  but  flays  it  and  shows  the  raw 
muscles  beneath  the  skin.  He  delighted  to  dwell  upon  the 
lowest  bodily  functions  of  human  nature.  "  He  saw  blood- 
shot," said  Thackeray. 


1.  History  of  Eighteenth  Century  Literature  (1660-1780). 
Edmund  Gosse.     London:  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1889. 

2.  Macaulay's  Essay,  The  Comic  Dramatists  of  the  Res- 
toration. 

3.  The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Dryden.  Macmillan  & 
Co.,  1873.     (Globe  Edition.) 

4.  Thackeray's  English  Humorists  of  the  last  Century. 

5.  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley.     New  York:  Harpers,  1878. 

6.  Swift's  Tale  of  a  Tub,  Gulliver's  Travels,  Directions  to 
Servants,  Polite  Conversation,  The  Great  Question  Debated, 
Verses  on  the  Death  of  Dean  Swift. 

7.  The  Poetical  Works  of  Alexander  Pope.  London : 
Macmillan  &  Co.,  1869.     (Globe  Edition.) 


Fbom  Death  of  Pope  to  Fbench  Revolution.     143 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PROM  THE  DEATH  OP  POPE  TO   THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 
1744-1789. 

Pope's  example  continued  potent  for  fifty  years  after  his 
death.  Especially  was  this  so  in  satiric  and  didactic  poetry. 
Not  only  Dr.  Johnson's  adaptations  from  Juvenal,  London^ 
1738,  and  the  Yanity  of  Human  Wishes,  1749,  but  Gifford's 
Baviad,  1791,  and  Maeviady  1795,  and  Byron's  English 
Bards  and  Scotch  Beviewers,  1809,  were  in  the  verse  and  the 
manner  of  Pope.  In  Johnson's  Lives  of  the  JPoets,  1781, 
Dryden  and  Pope  are  treated  as  the  two  greatest  English 
poets.  But  long  before  this  a  revolution  in  literary  taste 
had  begun,  a  movement  which  is  variously  described  as 
the  Return  to  Nature  or  the  Rise  of  the  New  Romantic 
School. 

For  nearly  a  hundred  years  poetry  had  dealt  with  man- 
ners and  the  life  of  towns — the  gay,  prosaic  life  of  Congreve 
or  of  Pope,  The  sole  concession  to  the  life  of  nature  was 
the  old  pastoral,  which,  in  the  hands  of  cockneys  like  Pope 
and  Ambrose  Philips,  who  merely  repeated  stock  descrip- 
tions at  second  or  third  hand,  became  even  more  artificial 
than  a  Beggar's  Opera  or  a  Bape  of  the  Bock.  These  at 
least  were  true  to  their  environment,  and  were  natural  just 
because  they  were  artificial.  But  the  Seasons  of  James 
Thomson,  published  in  installments  from  1726-1730,  had 
opened  a  new  field.  Their  theme  was  the  English  landscape, 
as  varied  by  the  changes  of  the  year,  and  they  were  written 
by  a  true  lover  and  observer  of  nature.  Mark  Akenside's 
Pleasures  of  Imagination,  1744,  published  the  year  of 
Pope's  death,  was  written,  like  the  Seasons,  in  blank  verse  ; 


14*        Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tekxyson. 

and  although  its  language  had  the  formal,  didactic  cast  of 
the  Queen  Anne  poets,  it  pointed  unmistakably  in  the  new 
direction.  Thomson  had  painted  the  soft  beauties  of  a 
highly  cultivated  land  —  lawns,  gardens,  forest-preserves, 
orchards,  and  sheep-walks.  But  now  a  fresh  note  was  struck 
in  the  literature,  not  of  England  alone,  but  of  Germany 
and  France — romanticism,  the  chief  element  in  which  was  a 
love  of  the  wild.  Poets  turned  from  the  tameness  of 
modem  existence  to  savage  nature  and  the  heroic  simplicity 
of  life  among  primitive  tribes.  In  France,  Rousseau  intro- 
duced the  idea  of  the  natural  man,  following  his  instincts  in 
disregard  of  social  conventions.  In  Germany  Bodmer  pub- 
lished, in  1753,  the  first  edition  of  the  old  German  epic,  the 
Nibelungen  Lied.  Works  of  a  similar  tendency  in  England 
were  the  odes  of  William  Collins  and  Thomas  Gray,  pub- 
lished between  1747  and  1757;  especially  Collins's  Ode  on 
the  Superstitions  of  the  Highlands,  and  Gray's  Bard,  a  Pin- 
daric in  which  the  last  survivor  of  the  Welsh  bards  invokes 
vengeance  on  Edward  I.,  the  destroyer  of  his  guild.  Gray 
and  Mason,  his  friend  and  editor,  made  translations  from  the 
ancient  Welsh  and  Norse  poetry.  Thomas  Percy's  Meliques 
of  Ancient  English  Poetry,  1765,  aroused  the  taste  for  old 
ballads.  Richard  Kurd's  Letters  on  Chivalry  and  Romance, 
Thomas  Warton's  History  of  English  Poetry.  1774-1778, 
Tyrwhitt's  critical  edition  of  Chaucer,  and  Horace  Walpole's 
Gothic  romance,  the  Cattle  of  Otranto,  1765,  stimulated  this 
awakened  interest  in  the  picturesque  aspects  of  feudal  life,  and 
contributed  to  the  fondness  for  suj^ernatural  and  mediaeval 
subjects.  James  Beattie's  Minstrel,  1771,  described  the  edu- 
cating influence  of  Scottish  mountain  scenery  upon  the  genius 
of  a  young  poet.  But  the  most  remarkable  instances  of  this 
passion  for  wild  nature  and  the  romantic  past  were  the  Poems 
of  Ossian  and  Thomas  Chatterton's  literary  forgeries. 

In  1 762  James  Macpherson  published  the  first  installment 
of  what  professed  to  be  a  translation  of  the  poems  of  Ossian, 


Fbom  Death  of  Pope  to  French  Revolution.    145 

a  Gaelic  bard,  whom  tradition  placed  in  the  3d  century. 
Macpherson  said  that  he  made  his  version — including  two 
complete  epics,  Fingal  and  Temora — from  Gaelic  MSS., 
which  he  had  collected  in  the  Scottish  Highlands.  A  fierce 
controversy  at  once  sprang  up  over  the  genuineness  of  these 
remains.  Macpherson  was  challenged  to  produce  his  origi- 
nals, and  when,  many  years  after,  he  published  the  Gaelic 
text,  it  was  asserted  that  this  was  nothing  but  a  translation 
of  his  own  English  into  modern  Gaelic.  Of  the  MSS. 
which  he  professed  to  have  found  not  a  scrap  remained  :  the 
Gaelic  text  was  printed  from  transcriptions  in  Macpherson's 
handwriting  or  in  that  of  his  secretaries. 

But  whether  these  poems  were  the  work  of  Ossian  or  of 
Macpherson,  they  made  a  deep  impression  at  the  time. 
Napoleon  admired  them  greatly,  and  Goethe  inserted  pas- 
sages from  the  "  Songs  of  Selma  "  in  his  Sorrows  of  Werther. 
Macpherson  composed — or  translated — them  in  an  abrupt, 
rhapsodical  prose,  resembling  the  English  version  of  Job  or 
of  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah.  They  filled  the  minds  of  their 
readers  with  images  of  vague  sublimity  and  desolation  ;  the 
mountain  torrent,  the  mist  on  the  hills,  the  ghosts  of  heroes 
half  seen  by  the  setting  moon,  the  thistle  in  the  ruined 
courts  of  chieftains,  the  grass  whistling  on  the  windy  heath, 
the  gray  rock  by  the  blue  stream  of  Lutha,  and  the  cliffs  of 
sea-surrounded  Gormal. 

"  A  tale  of  the  times  of  old  ! " 

"  Why,  thou  wanderer  unseen  !  Thou  bender  of  the 
thistle  of  Lora ;  why,  thou  breeze  of  the  valley,  hast  thou 
left  mine  ear  ?  I  hear  no  distant  roar  of  streams  !  No 
sound  of  the  harp  from  the  rock  !  Come,  thou  huntress  of 
Lutha,  Malvina,  call  back  his  soul  to  the  bard.  I  look  for- 
ward to  Lochlin  of  lakes,  to  the  dark  billowy  bay  of 
U-thorno,  where  Fingal  decends  from  Ocean,  from  the 
roar  of  winds.  Few  are  the  heroes  of  Morven  in  a  land  un- 
known." 


146  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Thomas  Chatterton,  who  died  by  his  own  hand  in  1770, 
at  the  age  of  seventeen,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  ex- 
amples of  precocity  in  the  history  of  literature.  His  father 
had  been  sexton  of  the  ancient  Church  of  St.  Mary  Redcliff, 
in  Bristol,  and  the  boy's  sensitive  imagination  took  the 
stamp  of  his  surroundings.  He  taught  himself  to  read  from 
a  black-letter  Bible.  He  drew  charcoal  sketches  of  churches, 
castles,  knightly  tombs,  and  heraldic  blazonry.  When  only 
eleven  years  old,  he  began  the  fabrication  of  documents  in 
prose  and  verse,  which  he  ascribed  to  a  fictitious  Thomas 
Rowley,  a  secular  priest  at  Bristol  in  the  15th  century. 
Chatterton  pretended  to  have  found  these  among  the  con- 
tents of  an  old  chest  in  the  muniment  room  of  St.  Mary  Red- 
cliflfs.  The  Rowley  poems  included  two  tragedies,  Aella 
and  Goddwyn,  two  cantos  of  a  long  poem  on  the  Hattle  of 
Hastings,  and  a  number  of  ballads  and  minor  pieces.  Chat- 
terton had  no  precise  knowledge  of  early  English,  or  even  of 
Chaucer.  His  method  of  working  was  as  follows.  He  made 
himself  a  manuscript  glossary  of  the  words  marked  as 
archaic  in  Bailey's  and  Kersey's  English  dictionaries,  com- 
posed his  poems  first  in  modern  language,  and  then  turned 
them  into  ancient  spelling,  and  substituted  here  and  there 
the  old  words  in  his  glossary  for  their  modern  equivalents. 
Naturally  he  made  many  mistakes,  and  though  Horace  Wal- 
pole,  to  whom  he  sent  some  of  his  pieces,  was  unable  to  de- 
tect the  forgery,  his  friends.  Gray  and  Mason,  to  whom  he 
submitted  them,  at  once  pronounced  them  spurious.  Never- 
theless there  was  a  controversy  over  Rowley  hardly  less 
obstinate  than  that  over  Ossian,  a  controversy  made  possible 
only  by  the  then  almost  universal  ignorance  of  the  forms, 
scansion,  and  vocabulary  of  early  English  poetry.  Chatter- 
ton's  poems  are  of  little  value  in  themselves,  but  they  are 
the  record  of  an  industry  and  imitative  quickness  marvel- 
ous in  a  mere  child,  and  they  show  how,  with  the  instinct  of 
genius,  he  threw  himself  into  the  main  literary  current  of 


Feom  Death  of  Pope  to  Feench  Revolution.    147 

his  time.  Discarding  the  couplet  of  Pope,  the  poets  now 
went  back  for  models  to  the  Elizabethan  writers.  Thomas 
"Warton  published  in  1753  his  Observations  on  the  Faerie 
Queene.  Beattie's  Minstrel,  Thomson's  Cattle  of  Indolence. 
and  William  Shenstone's  Schoolmistress  were  all  written  in 
the  Spenserian  stanza.  Shenstone  gave  a  partly  humorous 
effect  to  his  poem  by  imitating  Spenser's  archaisms,  and 
Thomson  reproduced  in  many  passages  the  copious  harmony 
and  luxuriant  imagery  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  John  Dyer's 
Fleece  was  a  poem  in  blank  verse  on  English  wool-growing, 
after  the  fashion  of  Vergil's  Georgics.  The  subject  was 
unfortunate,  for,  as  Dr.  Johnson  said,  it  is  impossible  to 
make  poetry  out  of  serges  and  druggets.  Dyer's  Grongar 
Sill,  which  mingles  reflection  with  natural  description  in  the 
manner  of  Gray's  Elegy  written  in  a  Country  Churchyard, 
was  composed  in  the  octosyllabic  verse  of  Milton's  U Allegro 
and  II  Penseroso.  Milton's  minor  poems,  which  had  hitherto 
been  neglected,  exercised  a  great  influence  on  Collins  and 
Gray.  Collins's  Ode  to  Simplicity  was  wi-itten  in  the 
stanza  of  Milton's  Natimty,  and  his  exquisite  unrimed  Ode 
to  Evening  was  a  study  in  versification,  after  Milton's  trans* 
lation  of  Horace's  Ode  to  Pyrrha,  in  the  original  meters. 
Shakspere  began  to  be  studied  more  reverently  :  numerous 
critical  editions  of  his  plays  were  issued,  and  Garrick  restored 
his  pure  text  to  the  stage.  Collins  was  an  enthusiastic  stu- 
dent of  Shakspere,  and  one  of  his  sweetest  poems,  the  Dirge 
in  Cymbeline,  was  inspired  by  the  tragedy  of  Cymbeline. 
The  verse  of  Gray,  Collins,  and  the  Warton  brothers  abounds 
in  verbal  reminiscences  of  Shakspere  ;  but  their  genius  was 
not  allied  to  his,  being  exclusively  lyrical  and  not  at  all 
dramatic.  The  Muse  of  this  romantic  school  was  Fancy  rather 
than  Passion.  A  thoughtful  melancholy,  a  gentle,  scholarly 
pensiveness,  the  spirit  of  Milton's  II  Penseroso,  pervades 
their  poetry.  Gray  was  a  fastidious  scholar,  who  produced 
rery  little,  but  that  little  of  the  finest  quality.     His  famous 


148  From  Chauoeb  to  Tennyson. 

Elegy,  expressing  a  meditative  mood  in  language  of  the 
choicest  perfection,  is  the  representative  poem  of  the  second 
half  of  the  18th  century,  as  the  Mape  of  the  Lock  is  of  the  first. 
The  romanticists  were  quietists,  and  their  scenery  is  char- 
acteristic. They  loved  solitude  and  evening,  the  twilight 
vale,  the  mossy  hermitage,  ruins,  glens,  and  caves.  Their 
style  was  elegant  and  academic,  retaining  a  little  of  the 
stilted  poetic  diction  of  their  classical  forerunners.  Personi- 
fication and  periphrasis  were  their  favorite  mannerisms  :  Col- 
lins's  Odes  were  largely  addressed  to  abstractions,  such  as 
Fear,  Pity,  Liberty,  Mercy  and  Simplicity.  A  poet  in  their 
dialect  was  always  a  "  bard  ; "  a  countryman  was  "  the  un- 
tutored swain,"  and  a  woman  was  a  "  nymph  "  or  "  the  fair," 
just  as  in  Dryden  and  Pope.  Thomson  is  perpetually  mindful 
of  Vergil,  and  afraid  to  speak  simply.  He  uses  too  many 
Latin  epithets,  like  amusive  a,ud  precipitant,  and  calls  a  fish- 

iine 

The  floating  line  snatched  from  the  hoary  steed. 

They  left  much  for  Cowper  and  Wordsworth  to  do  in  the 
way  of  infusing  the  new  blood  of  a  strong,  racy  English  into 
our  exhausted  poetic  diction.  Their  poetry  is  impersonal, 
bookish,  literary.  It  lacks  emotional  force,  except  now  and 
then  in  Gray's  immortal  Elegy,  in  his  Ode  on  a  Distant 
Prospect  of  Eton  College,  in  Collins's  lines.  On  the  Death 
of  Thomson,  and  his  little  ode  beginning,  "  How  sleep  the 
brave." 

The  new  school  did  not  lack  critical  expounders  of  its 
principles  and  practice.  Joseph  Warton  published,  in  1756, 
the  first  volume  of  his  Essay  on  the  Genius  and  Writings 
of  Pope,  an  elaborate  review  of  Pope's  writings  seriatim, 
doing  him  certainly  full  justice,  but  ranking  him  below 
Shakspere,  Spenser,  and  Milton.  "  Wit  and  satire,"  wrote 
Warton,  "  are  transitory  and  perishable,  but  nature  and  pas- 
sion are  eternal.  .  .  .  He  stuck  to  describing  modern  manners ; 
but  those  manners,  because  they  are  familiar,  artificial,  and 


Fbom  Death  of  Pope  to  French  Revolution.     149 

polished,  are,  in  their  very  nature,  unfit  for  any  lofty  effort  of 
the  Muse.  Whatever  poetical  enthusiasm  he  actually  pos- 
sessed he  withheld  and  stifled.  Surely  it  is  no  narrow  and 
niggardly  encomium  to  say,  he  is  the  great  Poet  of  Reason, 
the  first  of  Ethical  authors  in  verse,"  Warton  illustrated  his 
critical  positions  by  quoting  freely  not  only  from  Spenser  and 
Milton,  but  from  recent  poets,  like  Thomson,  Gray,  Collins, 
and  Dyer.  He  testified  that  the  Seasons  had  "  been  very 
instrumental  in  diffusing  a  general  taste  for  the  beauties  of 
nature  and  landscape."  It  was  symptomatic  of  the  change 
in  literary  taste  that  the  natural  or  English  school  of  land- 
scape gardening  now  began  to  displace  the  French  and 
Dutch  fashion  of  clipped  hedges,  and  regular  parterres,  and 
that  Gothic  architecture  came  into  repute.  Horace  Wal- 
pole  was  a  virtuoso  in  Gothic  art,  and  in  his  castle  at  Straw- 
berry Hill  he  made  a  collection  of  ancient  armor,  illuminated 
manuscripts,  and  bric-a-brac  of  all  kinds.  Gray  had  been 
Walpole's  traveling  companion  in  France  and  Italy,  and  the 
two  had  quarreled  and  separated,  but  were  afterward  recon- 
ciled. From  Walpole's  private  printing-press  at  Strawberry 
Hill  Gray's  two  "  sister  odes,"  the  JBard,  and  the  Progress 
of  Poesy,  were  first  issued  in  1757.  Both  Gray  and  Wal- 
pole  were  good  correspondents,  and  their  printed  letters  are 
among  the  most  delightful  literature  of  the  kind. 

The  central  figure  among  the  English  men  of  letters  of 
that  generation  was  Samuel  Johnson  (1709-1784),  whose  mem- 
oiy  has  been  preserved  less  by  his  own  writings  than  by 
James  Boswell's  famous  Life  of  Johnson,  published  in  1791. 
Boswell  was  a  Scotch  laird  and  advocate,  who  first  met 
Johnson  in  London,  when  the  latter  was  fifty-four  years  old. 
Boswell  was  not  a  very  wise  or  witty  person,  but  he  rever- 
enced the  worth  and  intellect  which  shone  through  his  sub- 
ject's uncouth  exterior.  He  followed  him  about,  note-book 
in  hand,  bore  all  his  snubbings  patiently,  and  made  the  best 
biography  ever  written.     It  is  related  that  the  doctor  once 


150  Fbom  Chaucek  to  Tennyson. 

said  that  if  he  thought  Boswell  meant  to  •write  his  life,  he 
should  prevent  it  by  taking  Boswell's.  And  yet  Johnson's 
own  writings  and  this  biography  of  him  have  changed  places 
in  relative  importance  so  completely  that  Carlyle  predicted 
that  the  former  would  soon  be  reduced  to  notes  on  the  latter; 
and  Macaulay  said  that  the  man  who  was  known  to  his  con- 
temporaries as  a  great  writer  was  known  to  posterity  as  an 
agreeable  companion. 

Johnson  was  one  of  those  rugged,  eccentric,  self -developed 
characters  so  common  among  the  English.  He  was  the  son 
of  a  Lichfield  book-seller,  and  after  a  course  at  Oxford,  which 
was  cut  short  by  poverty,  and  an  unsuccessful  career  as  a 
school-master,  he  had  come  up  to  London,  in  1737,  where  he 
supported  himself  for  many  years  as  a  book-seller's  hack. 
Gradually  his  great  learning  and  abilities,  his  ready  social 
wit  and  powers  as  a  talker,  caused  his  company  to  be  sought 
at  the  tables  of  those  whom  he  called  "  the  great."  He  was 
a  clubbable  man,  and  he  drew  about  him  at  the  tavern  a  group 
of  the  most  distinguished  intellects  of  the  time:  Edmund 
Burke,  the  orator  and  statesman ;  Oliver  Goldsmith,  Sir 
Joshua  ^Reynolds,  the  portrait  painter,  and  David  Garrick, 
the  great  actor,  who  had  been  a  pupil  in  Johnson's  school, 
near  Lichfield.  Johnson  was  the  typical  John  Bull  of  the 
last  century.  His  oddities,  virtues,  and  prejudices  were 
thoroughly  English.  He  hated  Frenchmen,  Scotchmen,  and 
Americans,  and  had  a  cockneyish  attachment  to  London.  He 
was  a  high  Tory,  and  an  orthodox  churchman;  he  loved  a 
lord  in  the  abstract,  and  yet  he  asserted  a  sturdy  independ- 
ence against  any  lord  in  particular.  He  was  deeply  relig- 
ious, but  had  an  abiding  fear  of  death.  He  was  burly  in 
person,  and  slovenly  in  dress,  his  shirt-frill  always  covered 
with  snuff.  He  was  a  great  diner  out,  an  inordinate  tea- 
drinker,  and  a  voracious  and  untidy  feeder.  An  inherited 
scrofula,  which  often  took  the  form  of  hypochondria  and 
threatened  to  affect  his  brain,  deprived  him  of  control  over 


From  Death  of  Pope  to  Frkxch  Revolution.    151 

the  muscles  of  his  face.  Boswell  describes  how  his  features 
worked,  how  he  snorted,  grunted,  whistled,  and  rolled  about 
in  his  chair  when  getting  ready  to  speak.  He  records  his 
minutest  traits,  such  as  his  habit  of  pocketing  the  orange 
peels  at  the  club,  and  his  superstitious  way  of  touching  all 
the  posts  between  his  house  and  the  Mitre  Tavern,  going  back 
to  do  it,  if  he  skipped  one  by  chance.  Though  bearish  in  his 
manners  and  arrogant  in  dispute,  especially  when  talking 
"  for  victory,"  Johnson  had  a  large  and  tender  heart.  He 
loved  his  ugly,  old  wife — twenty-one  years  his  senior — and 
he  had  his  house  full  of  unfortunates — a  blind  woman,  an 
invalid  surgeon,  a  destitute  widow,  a  negro  servant — whom 
he  supported  for  many  years,  and  bore  with  all  their  ill- 
humors  patiently. 

Among  Johnson's  numerous  writings  the  ones  best  entitled 
to  remembrance  are,  perhaps,  his  Dictionary  of  the  English 
Language^  1755;  his  moral  tale,  Rasselas,  1759;  the  introduc- 
tion to  his  edition  of  Shakspere,  1765,  and  his  Lives  of  the 
Poets^  1781.  Johnson  wrote  a  sonorous,  cadenced  prose,  full 
of  big  Latin  words  and  balanced  clauses.  Here  is  a  sentence, 
for  example,  from  his  Yisit  to  the  Hebrides:  "We  were 
now  treading  that  illustrious  island  which  was  once  the  lumi- 
nary of  the  Caledonian  regions,  whence  savage  clans  and 
roving  barbarians  derived  the  benefits  of  knowledge  and  the 
blessings  of  religion.  To  abstract  the  mind  from  all  local 
emotion  would  be  impossible,  if  it  were  endeavored,  and 
would  be  foolish,  if  it  were  possible."  The  difference  be- 
tween his  colloquial  style  and  his  book  style  is  well  illustrated 
in  the  instance  cited  by  Macaulay.  Speaking  of  Yilliers's 
Rehearsal,  Johnson  said,  "  It  has  not  wit  enough  to  keep  it 
sweet;"  then  paused  and  added — translating  English  into 
Johnsonese — "  it  has  not  vitality  sufficient  to  preserve  it  from 
putrefaction."  There  is  more  of  this  in  Johnson's  Rambler 
and  Idler  papers  than  in  his  latest  work,  the  Lives  of  the 
Poets,     In  this  he  showed  himself   a  sound  and  judicious 


162  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

critic,  though  with  decided  limitations.  His  understanding 
was  solid,  but  he  was  a  thorough  classicist,  and  his  taste  in 
poetry  was  formed  on  Pope.  He  was  unjust  to  Milton  and 
to  his  own  contemporaries,  Gray,  Collins,  Shen  stone,  and 
Dyer.  He  had  no  sense  of  the  higher  and  subtler  graces  of 
romantic  poetry,  and  he  had  a  comical  indifference  to  the 
"  beauties  of  nature."  When  Bos  well  once  ventured  to  re- 
mark that  poor  Scotland  had,  at  least,  some  "noble  wild 
prospects,"  the  doctor  replied  that  the  noblest  prospect  a 
Scotchman  ever  saw  was  the  road  that  led  to  London. 

The  English  novel  of  real  life  had  its  origin  at  this  time. 
Books  like  De  Foe's  Hohinson  Crusoe^  Captain  Singletony 
Journal  of  the  Plague,  etc.,  were  tales  of  incident  and  ad- 
venture rather  than  novels.  The  novel  deals  primarily  with 
character  and  with  the  interaction  of  characters  upon  one 
another,  as  developed  by  a  regular  plot.  The  first  English 
novelist,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  was  Samuel  Rich- 
ardson, a  printer,  who  began  authorship  in  his  fiftieth  year 
with  his  Pamela,  1 740,  the  story  of  a  young  servant  girl  who 
resisted  the  seductions  of  her  master,  and  finally,  as  the  re- 
ward of  her  virtue,  became  his  wife.  Clarissa  Sarlowe,  1748, 
was  the  tragical  history  of  a  high-spirited  young  lady  who, 
being  driven  from  her  home  by  her  family  because  she 
refused  to  many  the  suitor  selected  for  her,  fell  into  the 
toils  of  Lovelace,  an  accomplished  rake.  After  struggling 
heroically  against  every  form  of  artifice  and  violence,  she  was 
at  last  drugged  and  ruined.  She  died  of  a  broken  heart,  and 
Lovelace,  borne  down  by  remorse,  was  killed  in  a  duel  by  a 
cousin  of  Clarissa.  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  1753,  was  Rich- 
ardson's portrait  of  an  ideal  fine  gentleman,  whose  stately 
doings  fill  eight  volumes,  but  who  seems  to  the  modem  reader 
a  bore  and  a  prig.  All  these  novels  were  written  in  the  form 
of  letters  passing  between  the  characters,  a  method  which 
fitted  Richardson's  subjective  cast  of  mind.  He  knew  little 
of  life,  but  he  identified  himself  intensely  with  his  principal 


Feom  Death  of  Pope  to  French  Revolution.    153 

character  and  produced  a  strong  effect  by  minute,  accumulated 
touches.  Clarissa  Harlowe  is  his  masterpiece,  though  even 
in  that  the  situation  is  painfully  prolonged,  the  heroine's  vir- 
tue is  self-conscious  and  rhetorical,  and  there  is  something 
almost  ludicrously  unnatural  in  the  copiousness  with  which 
she  pours  herself  out  in  gushing  epistles  to  her  female  corre- 
spondent at  the  very  moment  when  she  is  beset  with  dangers, 
persecuted,  agonized,  and  driven  nearly  mad.  In  Richard- 
son's novels  appears,  for  the  first  time,  that  sentimentalism 
which  now  began  to  infect  European  literature.  Pamela  was 
translated  into  French  and  German,  and  fell  in  with  the 
current  of  popular  feeling  which  found  fullest  expression  in 
Rousseau's  NouveUe  Heloise,  1759,  and  Goethe's  Leiden  des 
Jungen  Werther,  which  set  all  the  world  a-weeping  in  1774. 

Coleridge  said  that  to  pass  from  Richardson's  books  to 
those  of  Henry  Fielding  was  like  going  into  the  fresh  air  from 
a  close  room  heated  by  stoves.  Richardson,  it  has  been 
affirmed,  knew  man,  but  Fielding  knew  m,en.  The  latter's 
:first  novel,  Joseph  Andrews,  1742,  was  begun  as  a  travesty 
of  Pamela.  The  hero,  a  brother  of  Pamela,  was  a  young 
footman  in  the  employ  of  Lady  Booby,  from  whom  his  virtue 
suffered  a  like  assault  to  that  made  upon  Pamela's  by  her 
master.  This  reversal  of  the  natural  situation  was  in  itself 
full  of  laughable  possibilities,  had  the  book  gone  on  simply 
as  a  burlesque.  But  the  exuberance  of  Fielding's  genius  led 
him  beyond  his  original  design.  His  hero,  leaving  Lady 
Booby's  service,  goes  traveling  with  good  Parson  Adams, 
and  is  soon  engaged  in  a  series  of  comical  and  rather  boister- 
ous adventures. 

Fielding  had  seen  life,  and  his  characters  were  painted  from 
the  life  with  a  bold,  free  hand.  He  was  a  gentleman  by 
birth,  and  had  made  acquaintance  with  society  and  the  town 
in  1727,  when  he  was  a  handsome,  stalwart  young  fellow, 
with  high  animal  spirits  and  a  great  appetite  for  pleasure. 
He  soon  ran  himself  into  debt  and  began  writing  for  the 


154  Fkom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

stage;  married,  and  spent  his  wife's  fortune,  living  for  a  while 
in  much  splendor  as  a  country  gentleman,  and  afterward  in  a 
reduced  condition  as  a  rural  justice  with  a  salary  of  five 
hundred  pounds  of  "  the  dirtiest  money  on  earth."  Field- 
ing's masterpiece  was  Tom  Jones,  1749,  and  it  remains  one  of 
the  best  of  English  novels.  Its  hero  is  very  much  after  Field- 
ing's own  heart,  wild,  spendthrift,  warm-hearted,  forgiving, 
and  greatly  in  need  of  forgiveness.  The  same  type  of  char- 
acter, with  the  lines  deepened,  re-appears  in  Captain  Booth, 
m  Amelia,  1751,  the  heroine  of  which  is  a  portrait  of  Field- 
ing's wife.  With  Tom  Jones  is  contrasted  Blifil,  the  embodi- 
ment of  meanness,  hypocrisy,  and  cowardice.  Sophia  Western, 
the  heroine,  is  one  of  Fielding's  most  admirable  creations. 
For  the  regulated  morality  of  Richardson,  with  its  somewhat 
old-grannified  air.  Fielding  substituted  instinct.  His  virtuous 
characters  are  virtuous  by  impulse  only,  and  his  ideal  of 
character  is  manliness.  In  Jonathan  Wild  the  hero  is  a 
highwayman.  This  novel  is  ironical,  a  sort  of  prose  mock- 
heroic,  and  is  one  of  the  strongest,  though  certainly  the  least 
pleasing,  of  Fielding's  writings. 

Tobias  Smollett  was  an  inferior  Fielding  with  a  difference. 
He  was  a  Scotch  ship-surgeon,  and  had  spent  some  time  in 
the  West  Indies.  He  introduced  into  fiction  the  now  familiar 
figure  of  the  British  tar,  in  the  persons  of  Tom  Bowling  and 
Commodore  Trunnion,  as  Fielding  had  introduced,  in  Squire 
Western,  the  equally  national  type  of  the  hard-swearing, 
deep-drinking,  fox-hunting  Tory  squire.  Both  Fielding  and 
Smollett  were  of  the  hearty  British  "  beef -and-beer  "  school; 
their  novels  are  downright,  energetic,  coarse,  and  high- 
blooded;  low  life,  physical  life,  runs  riot  through  their  pages 
— tavern  brawls,  the  breaking  of  pates,  and  the  off-hand  court- 
ship of  country  wenches.  Smollett's  books,  such  as  Roderick 
Random,  1748;  Peregrine  Pickle,  11 51,  and  Ferdinand  Count 
Fathom,  1752,  were  more  purely  stories  of  broadly  comic  ad- 
venture than  Fielding's.     The  latter's  view  of  life  was  by 


Feom  Death  of  Pope  to  Fkench  Revolutiox.    155 

no  means  idyllic  ;  but  with  Smollett  this  English  realism  ran 
into  vulgarity  and  a  hard  Scotch  literalness,  and  character 
was  pushed  to  caricature.  "The  generous  wine  of  Field- 
ing," says  Taine,  "  in  Smollett's  hands  becomes  brandy  of  the 
dram-shop."  A  partial  exception  to  this  is  to  be  found  in 
his  last  and  best  no\e\,  Humphrey  Clinker,  1770.  The  influ- 
ence of  Cervantes  and  of  the  French  novelist,  Le  Sage,  who 
finished  his  Adventures  of  Gil  Bias  in  1735,  are  very  per- 
ceptible in  Smollett. 

A  genius  of  much  finer  mold  was  Lawrence  Sterne,  the 
author  of  Tristram  Shandy,  1759-1767,  and  the  jSentimental 
Joxirney,  1768.  Tristram  Shandy  is  hardly  a  novel:  the  story 
merely  serves  to  hold  together  a  number  of  characters,  such 
as  Uncle  Toby  and  Corporal  Trim,  conceived  with  rare 
subtlety  and  originality.  Sterne's  chosen  province  was  the 
whimsical,  and  his  great  model  was  Rabelais.  His  books  are 
full  of  digressions,  breaks,  surprises,  innuendoes,  double 
meanings,  mystifications,  and  all  manner  of  odd  turns. 
Coleridge  and  Carlyle  unite  in  pronouncing  him  a  great  hu- 
morist. Thackeray  says  that  he  was  only  a  great  jester. 
Humor  is  the  laughter  of  the  heart,  and  Sterne's  pathos  is 
closely  interwoven  with  his  humor.  He  was  the  foremost  of 
English  sentimentalists,  and  he  had  that  taint  of  insincerity 
which  distinguishes  sentimentalism  from  genuine  sentiment, 
like  Goldsmith's,  for  example.  Sterne,  in  life,  was  selfish, 
heartless,  and  untrue.  A  clergyman,  his  worldliness  and 
vanity  and  the  indecency  of  his  writings  were  a  scandal  to 
the  Church,  though  his  sermons  were  both  witty  and  affecting. 
He  enjoyed  the  titillation  of  his  own  emotions,  and  he  had 
practiced  so  long  at  detecting  the  latent  pathos  that  lies  in 
the  expression  of  dumb  things  and  of  poor,  patient  animals, 
that  he  could  summon  the  tear  of  sensibility  at  the  thought 
of  a  discarded  postchaise,  a  dead  donkey,  a  starling  in  a 
cage,  or  of  Uncle  Toby  putting  a  house  fly  out  of  the  win- 
dow, and  saying,  "  There  is  room  enough  in  the  world  for 


156  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

thee  and  me."  It  is  a  high  proof  of  his  cleverness  that  he 
generally  succeeds  in  raising  the  desired  feeling  in  his  read- 
ers even  from  such  trivial  occasions.  He  was  a  minute  phi- 
losopher, his  philosophy  was  kindly,  and  he  taught  the  delicate 
art  of  making  much  out  of  little.  Less  coarse  than  Fielding, 
he  is  far  more  corrupt.  Fielding  goes  bluntly  to  the  point ; 
Sterne  lingers  among  the  temptations  and  suspends  the  ex- 
pectation to  tease  and  excite  it.  Forbidden  fruit  had  a  relish 
for  him,  and  his  pages  seduce.  He  is  fuU  of  good  sayings 
both  tender  and  witty.  It  was  Sterne,  for  example,  who 
wrote,  "  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb." 

A  very  different  writer  was  Oliver  Goldsmith,  whose 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  1766,  was  the  earliest,  and  is  still  one  of 
the  best,  novels  of  domestic  and  rural  life.  The  book,  like 
its  author,  was  thoroughly  Irish,  full  of  bulls  and  inconsist- 
encies. Very  improbable  things  happened  in  it  with  a  cheer- 
ful defiance  of  logic.  But  its  characters  are  true  to  nature, 
drawn  with  an  idyllic  sweetness  and  purity,  and  with  touches 
of  a  most  loving  humor.  Its  hero.  Dr.  Primrose,  was  painted 
after  Goldsmith's  father,  a  poor  clergyman  of  the  English 
Church  in  Ireland,  and  the  original,  likewise,  of  the  country 
parson  in  Goldsmith's  Deserted  Village,  1770,  who  was  "pas- 
sing rich  on  forty  pounds  a  year."  This  poem,  though  writ- 
ten in  the  fashionable  couplet  of  Pope,  and  even  containing 
a  few  verses  contributed  by  Dr.  Johnson — so  that  it  was  not 
at  all  in  line  with  the  work  of  the  romanticists — did,  perhaps, 
as  much  as  any  thing  of  Gray  or  of  Collins  to  recall  English 
poetry  to  the  simplicity  and  freshness  of  country  life. 

Except  for  the  comedies  of  Sheridan  and  Goldsmith,  and, 
perhaps,  a  few  other  plays,  the  stage  had  now  utterly  declined. 
The  novel,  which  is  dramatic  in  essence,  though  not  in  form, 
began  to  take  its  place,  and  to  represent  life,  though  less  in- 
tensely, yet  more  minutely  than  the  theater  could  do.  In  the 
novelists  of  the  18th  century,  the  life  of  the  people,  as  distin- 
guished from  "  society  "  or  the  upper  classes,  began  to  invade 


Feom:  Death  of  Pope  to  French  Revolution.  157 

literature.  Richardson  was  distinctly  a  bourgeois  writer, 
and  his  contemporaries  —  Fielding,  Smollett,  Sterne,  and 
Goldsmith — ranged  over  a  wide  variety  of  ranks  and  condi- 
tions. This  is  one  thing  which  distinguishes  the  literature 
of  the  second  half  of  the  18th  century  from  that  of  the  first, 
as  well  as  in  some  degree  from  that  of  all  previous  centuries. 
Among  the  authors  of  this  generation  whose  writings  be- 
longed to  other  departments  of  thought  than  pure  literature 
may  be  mentioned,  in  passing,  the  great  historian,  Edward 
Gibbon,  whose  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  was 
published  from  1776-1788,  and  Edmund  Burke,  whose  polit- 
ical speeches  and  pamphlets  possess  a  true  literary  quality. 

The  romantic  poets  had  addressed  the  imagination  rather 
than  the  heart.  It  was  reserved  for  two  men — a  contrast  to 
one  another  in  almost  every  respect — to  bring  once  more  into 
British  song  a  strong  individual  feeling,  and  with  it  a  new 
warmth  and  directness  of  speech.  These  were  William 
Cowper  (1731-1800)  and  Robert  Burns  (1759-1796).  Cowper 
spoke  out  of  his  own  life-experience,  his  agony,  his  love,  his 
worship  and  despair;  and  straightway  the  varnish  that  had 
glittered  over  all  our  poetry  since  the  time  of  Dryden  melted 
away.  Cowper  had  scribbled  verses  when  he  was  a  young 
law  student  at  the  Middle  Temple  in  London,  and  he  had 
contributed  to  the  Olney  Hymns,  published  in  1779  by  his 
friend  and  pastor,  the  Rev.  John  Newton;  but  he  only  began 
to  write  poetry  in  earnest  when  he  was  nearly  fifty  years  old. 
In  1782,  the  date  of  his  first  volume,  he  said,  in  a  letter  to  a 
friend,  that  he  had  read  but  one  English  poet  during  the 
past  twenty  years.  Perhaps,  therefore,  of  all  English  poets 
of  equal  culture,  Cowper  owed  the  least  impulse  to  books 
and  the  most  to  the  need  of  uttering  his  inmost  thoughts  and 
feelings.  Cowper  had  a  most  unhappy  life.  As  a  child  he 
was  shy,  sensitive,  and  sickly,  and  suffered  much  from  bully- 
ing and  fagging  at  a  school  whither  he  was  sent  after  his 
mother's  death.     This  happened  when  he  was  six  years  old; 


168  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

and  in  his  affecting  lines  written  On  Receipt  of  My  Mother's 
Picture^  he  speaks  of  himself  as  a 

Wretch  even  then,  life's  journey  just  begun. 

In  1763  he  became  insane  and  was  sent  to  an  asylum,  where 
he  spent  a  year.  Judicious  treatment  restored  him  to  sanity, 
but  he  came  out  a  broken  man  and  remained  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  an  invalid,  unfitted  for  any  active  occupation.  His 
disease  took  the  form  of  religious  melancholy.  He  had  two 
recurrences  of  madness,  and  both  times  made  attempts  upon 
his  life.  At  Huntingdon,  and  afterward  at  Olney,  in  Buck- 
inghamshire, he  found  a  home  with  the  Unwin  family,  whose 
kindness  did  all  which  the  most  soothing  and  delicate  care 
could  do  to  heal  his  wounded  spirit.  His  two  poems  To 
Mary  Unwin,  together  with  the  lines  on  his  mother's  picture, 
were  almost  the  first  examples  of  deep  and  tender  sentiment 
in  the  lyrical  poetry  of  the  last  century.  Cowper  found  re- 
lief from  the  black  thoughts  that  beset  him  only  in  an  ordered 
round  of  quiet  household  occupations.  He  corresponded  in- 
def  atigably,  took  long  walks  through  the  neighborhood,  read, 
sang,  and  conversed  with  Mrs.  Unwin  and  his  friend.  Lady 
Austin,  and  amused  himself  with  carpentry,  gardening,  and 
raising  pets,  especially  hares,  of  which  gentle  animals  he 
grew  very  fond.  All  these  simple  tastes,  in  which  he  found 
for  a  time  a  refuge  and  a  sheltered  happiness,  are  reflected 
in  his  best  poem.  The  Task,  1785,  Cowper  is  the  poet  of  the 
family  affections,  of  domestic  life,  and  rural  retirement;  the 
laureate  of  the  fireside,  the  tea-table,  the  evening  lamp,  the 
garden,  the  green-house,  and  the  rabbit-coop.  He  draws 
with  elegance  and  precision  a  chair,  a  clock,  a  harpsichord, 
a  barometer,  a  piece  of  needle-work.  But  Cowper  was  an 
outdoor  as  well  as  an  indoor  man.  The  Olney  landscape 
was  tame,  a  fat,  agricultural  region,  where  the  sluggish  Ouse 
wound  between  plowed  fields  and  the  horizon  was  bounded 
by  low  hills.     Nevertheless  Cowper's  natural  descriptions  are 


From  Death  of  Pope  to  French  Revolution.    159 

at  once  more  distinct  and  more  imaginative  than  Thomson's. 
The  Task  reflects,  also,  the  new  philanthropic  spirit,  the  en- 
thusiasm of  humanity,  the  feeling  of  the  brotherhood  of  men 
to  which  Rousseau  had  given  expression  in  France,  and  which 
issued  in  the  French  Revolution.  In  England  this  was  the 
time  of  Wilberforce,  the  antislavery  agitator;  of  Whitefield, 
the  eloquent  revival  preacher;  of  John  and  Charles  Wesley, 
and  of  the  Evangelical  and  Methodist  movements  which  gave 
new  life  to  the  English  Church.  John  Newton,  the  curate 
of  Olney  and  the  keeper  of  Cowper's  conscience,  was  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Evangelicals;  and  Cowper's  first  volume  of 
Table  Talk  and  other  poems,  1782,  written  under  Newton's 
inspiration,  was  a  series  of  sermons  in  verse,  somewhat  intol- 
erant of  all  worldly  enjoyments,  such  as  hunting,  dancing,  and 
theaters.  "  God  made  the  country  and  man  made  the  town," 
he  wrote.  He  was  a  moralizing  poet,  and  his  morality  was 
sometimes  that  of  the  invalid  and  the  recluse.  Byron  called 
him  a  "  coddled  poet."  And,  indeed,  there  is  a  suspicion  of 
gruel  and  dressing-gowns  about  him.  He  lived  much  among 
women,  and  his  sufferings  had  refined  him  to  a  feminine  del- 
icacy. But  there  is  no  sickliness  in  his  poetry,  and  he  retained 
a  charming  playful  humor — displayed  in  his  excellent  comic 
ballad  John  Gilpin  /  and  Mrs.  Browning  has  sung  of  him. 

How,  when  one  by  one  sweet  sounds  and  wandering  lights  departed, 
He  bore  no  less  a  loving  face,  because  so  broken-hearted. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1786  a  young  Scotchman,  named 
Samuel  Rose,  called  upon  Cowper  at  Olney,  and  left  with 
him  a  small  volume,  which  had  appeared  at  Edinburgh  dur- 
ing the  past  summer,  entitled  Poems  chiefly  in  the  Scottish 
Dialect  by  Robert  Bums.  Cowper  read  the  book  through 
twice,  and,  though  somewhat  bothered  by  the  dialect, 
pronounced  it  a  "very  extraordinary  production."  This 
momentary  flash,  as  of  an  electric  spark,  marks  the  contact 
not  only  of  the  two  chief  British  poets  of  their  generation, 
but   of  two   literatures.     Scotch  poets,   like  Thomson  and 


160  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Beattie,  had  written  in  southern  English,  and,  as  Carlyle 
said,  in  vacuo,  that  is,  with  nothing  specially  national  in 
their  work.  Burns's  sweet  though  rugged  Doric  first  secured 
the  vernacular  poetry  of  his  country  a  hearing  beyond  the 
border.  He  had,  to  be  sure,  a  whole  literature  of  popular 
songs  and  ballads  behind  him,  and  his  immediate  models  were 
Allan  Ramsay  and  Robert  Ferguson  ;  but  these  remained 
provincial,  while  Burns  became  universal. 

He  was  bom  in  Ayrshire,  on  the  banks  of  "  bonny  Doon," 
in  a  clay  biggin  not  far  from  "  Alloway's  auld  haunted  kirk,'* 
the  scene  of  the  witch  dance  in  Tarn  O'Shanter.  His  father 
was  a  hard-headed.  God-fearing  tenant  farmer,  whose  life  and 
that  of  his  sons  was  a  harsh  struggle  with  poverty.  The 
crops  failed  ;  the  landlord  pressed  for  his  rent ;  for  weeks  at 
a  time  the  family  tasted  no  meat ;  yet  this  life  of  toil  was 
lightened  by  love  and  homely  pleasures.  In  the  Cotter's 
Saturday  Night  Bums  has  drawn  a  beautiful  picture  of  his 
parents'  household,  the  rest  that  came  at  the  week's  end,  and 
the  family  worship  about  the  "  wee  bit  ingle,  blinkin'  bon- 
nily."  Robert  was  handsome,  wild,  and  witty.  He  was 
universally  susceptible,  and  his  first  songs,  like  his  last,  were 
of  "  the  lasses."  His  head  had  been  stuffed,  in  boyhood,  with 
"  tales  and  songs  concerning  devils,  ghosts,  fairies,  brownies, 
witches,  warlocks,  spunkies,  kelpies,  elf -candles,  dead-lights," 
etc.,  told  him  by  one  Jenny  "Wilson,  an  old  woman  who  lived 
in  the  family.  His  ear  was  full  of  ancient  Scottish  tunes, 
and  as  soon  as  he  fell  in  love  he  began  to  make  poetry  as 
naturally  as  a  bird  sings.  He  composed  his  verses  while  fol- 
lowing the  plow  or  working  in  the  stack-yard ;  or,  at  even- 
ing, balancing  on  two  legs  of  his  chair  and  watching  the 
light  of  a  peat  fire  play  over  the  reeky  walls  of  the  cottage. 
Burns's  love  songs  are  in  many  keys,  ranging  from  strains  of 
the  most  pure  and  exalted  passion,  like  Ae  Fond  Kiss  and 
To  Mary  in  Heaven,  to  such  loose  ditties  as  When  Januar 
Winds,  and  Green  Grow  the  Hashes  0. 


From  Death  of  Pope  to  Fbench  Revolution.    161 

Burns  liked  a  glass  almost  as  well  as  a  lass,  and  at  Mauch- 
line,  where  he  carried  on  a  farm  with  his  brother  Gilbert, 
after  their  father's  death,  he  began  to  seek  a  questionable  re- 
lief from  the  pressure  of  daily  toil  and  unkind  fates,  in  the 
convivialities  of  the  tavern.  There,  among  the  wits  of  the 
Mauchline  Club,  farmers'  sons,  shepherds  from  the  uplands, 
and  the  smugglers  who  swarmed  over  the  west  coast,  he 
would  discuss  politics  and  farming,  recite  his  verses,  and  join 
in  the  singing  and  ranting,  while 

Bousin  o'er  the  nappy 

And  gettin'  fou  and  unco  happy. 

To  these  experiences  we  owe  not  only  those  excellent 
drinking  songs,  John  Barleycorn  and  Willie  Brexoed  a  Peck  o' 
Maut,  but  the  headlong  fun  of  Tarn  O^Shanter,  the  visions, 
grotesquely  terrible,  of  Death  and  Br.  Hornbook,  and  the 
dramatic  humor  of  the  Jolly  Beggars.  Cowper  had  cele- 
brated "the  cup  which  cheers  but  not  inebriates."  Burns 
sang  the  praises  of  Scotch  Brink.  Cowper  was  a  stranger  to 
Burns's  high  animal  spirits,  and  his  robust  enjoyment  of  life. 
He  had  affections,  but  no  passions.  At  Mauchline,  Burns, 
whose  irregularities  did  not  escape  the  censure  of  the  kirk, 
became  involved,  through  his  friendship  with  Gavin  Hamil- 
ton, in  the  controversy  between  the  Old  Light  and  New 
Light  clergy.  His  Holy  Fair,  Holy  Tidzie,  Twa  Herds, 
Holy  Willie's  Prayer,  and  Address  to  the  Unco  Gude,  are 
satires  against  bigotry  and  hypocrisy.  But  in  spite  of  the 
rollicking  profanity  of  his  language,  and  the  violence  of  his 
rebound  against  the  austere  religion  of  Scotland,  Burns  was 
at  bottom  deeply  impressible  by  religious  ideas,  as  may  be 
seen  from  his  Player  under  the  Pressure  of  Violent  Anguish, 
and  Prayer  in  Prospect  of  Death. 

His  farm  turned  out  a  failure,  and  he  was  on  the  eve  of 
sailing  for  Jamaica,  when  the  favor  with  which  his  volume 
of  poems  was  received  stayed  his  departure,  and  turned  his 
steps  to  Edinburgh.     There  the  peasant  poet  was  lionized 


162  Fkom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

for  a  winter  season  by  the  learned  and  polite  society  of  the 
Scotch  capital,  with  results  in  the  end  not  altogether  favor- 
able to  Burns's  best  interests.  For  when  society  finally 
turned  the  cold  shoulder  on  him  he  had  to  go  back  to  farming 
again,  carrying  with  him  a  bitter  sense  of  injustice  and  neg- 
lect. He  leased  a  farm  at  EUisland,  in  1 788,  and  some  friends 
procured  his  appointment  as  exciseman  for  his  district.  But 
poverty,  disappointment,  irregular  habits,  and  broken  health 
clouded  his  last  years,  and  brought  him  to  an  untimely  death 
at  the  age  of  thirty-seven.  He  continued,  however,  to  pour 
forth  songs  of  unequaled  sweetness  and  force.  "The  man 
sank,"  said  Coleridge,  "  but  the  poet  was  bright  to  the  last." 

Burns  is  the  best  of  British  song-writers.  His  songs  ai'e 
singable;  they  are  not  merely  lyrical  poems.  They  were 
meant  to  be  sung,  and  they  are  sung.  They  were  mostly  set 
to  old  Scottish  airs,  and  sometimes  they  were  built  up  from 
ancient  fragments  of  anonymous  popular  poetry,  a  chorus, 
or  stanza,  or  even  a  single  line.  Such  are,  for  example,  Auld 
Lang  Syne,  My  Hearts  in  the  Highlands,  and  Landlady, 
Count  the  Lawin.  Burns  had  a  great,  warm  heart.  His  sins 
were  sins  of  passion,  and  sprang  from  the  same  generous 
soil  that  nourished  his  impulsive  virtues.  His  elementary 
qualities  as  a  poet  were  sincerity,  a  healthy  openness  to  all 
impressions  of  the  beautiful,  and  a  sympathy  which  em- 
braced men,  animals,  and  the  dumb  objects  of  nature.  His 
tenderness  toward  flowers  and  the  brute  creation  may  be  read 
in  his  lines  To  a  Mountain  Daisy,  To  a  Moicse,  and  77ie 
Auld  Farmer's  New  Yearns  Morning  Salutation  to  his  Aidd 
Mare  Maggie.  Next  after  love  and  good  fellowship,  pa- 
triotism is  the  most  frequent  motive  of  his  song.  Of  his 
national  anthem,  Scots  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled,  Carlyle 
said :  "  So  long  as  there  is  warm  blood  in  the  heart  of 
Scotchman,  or  man,  it  will  move  in  fierce  thrills  under  this 
war  ode." 

Burns's  politics  were  a  singular  mixture  of  sentimental 


From  Death  of  Pope  to  French  Revolution.     163 

Toryism  with  practical  democracy.  A  romantic  glamour  was 
thrown  over  the  fortunes  of  the  exiled  Stuarts,  and  to  have 
been  "  out "  in  '45  with  the  Young  Pretender  was  a  popular 
thing  in  parts  of  Scotland.  To  this  purely  poetic  loyalty 
may  be  attributed  such  Jacobite  ballads  of  Burns  as  Over  the 
Water  to  Charlie.  But  his  sober  convictions  were  on  the 
side  of  liberty  and  human  brotherhood,  and  are  expressed  in 
The  Twa  Dogs,  the  First  Epistle  to  Davie,  and  A  Man's  a 
Man  for  a'  that.  His  sympathy  with  the  Revolution  led  him 
to  send  four  pieces  of  ordnance,  taken  from  a  captured  smug- 
gler, as  a  present  to  the  French  Convention,  a  piece  of  bra- 
vado which  got  him  into  difficulties  with  his  superiors  in  the 
excise.  The  poetry  which  Burns  wrote,  not  in  dialect,  but  in 
the  classical  English,  is  in  the  stilted  manner  of  his  century, 
and  his  prose  correspondence  betrays  his  lack  of  culture  by 
its  constant  lapse  into  rhetorical  affectation  and  fine  writing. 


1.  James  Thomson.     The  Castle  of  Indolence. 

2.  The  Poems  of  Thomas  Gray. 

3.  William  Collins.     Odes. 

4.  The  Six  Chief  Lives  from  Johnson's  Lives  of  the  Poets. 
Edited  by  Matthew  Arnold.     Macmillan,  1878. 

5.  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson  [abridged].     Henry  Holt  & 
Co.,  1878. 

6.  Samuel  Richardson.     Clarissa  Harlowe. 

7.  Henry  Fielding.     Tom  Jones. 

8.  Tobias  Smollett.     Humphrey  Clinker. 

9.  Lawrence  Sterne.     Tristram  Shandy. 

10.  Oliver  Goldsmith.     Vicar  of  Wakefield  and  Deserted 
Village. 

11.  William  Cowper.     The  Task  and  John  Gilpin.     (Globe 
Edition.)     London  :  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1879. 

12.  The    Poems    and    Songs    of  Robert  Burns.     (Globe 
Edition.)     London:  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1884. 


164  Fbom  Chaucbb  to  Tennyson. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

FROM  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  TO  THE  DEATH  OF  SCOTT. 
1789-1832. 

The  burst  of  creative  activity  at  the  opening  of  the  19th 
century  has  but  one  parallel  in  English  literary  history, 
namely,  the  somewhat  similar  flowering  out  of  the  national 
genius  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth  and  the  first  two  Stuart 
kings.  The  later  age  gave  birth  to  no  supreme  poets,  like 
Shakspere  and  Milton.  It  produced  no  Hamlet  and  no 
Paradise  Lost  /  but  it  offers  a  greater  number  of  important 
writers,  a  higher  average  of  excellence,  and  a  wider  range 
and  variety  of  literary  work  than  any  preceding  era.  Words- 
worth, Coleridge,  Scott,  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats  are  all 
great  names  ;  while  Southey,  Landor,  Moore,  Lamb,  and  De 
Quincey  would  be  noteworthy  figures  at  any  period,  and  de- 
serve a  fuller  mention  than  can  be  here  accorded  them.  But 
in  so  crowded  a  generation,  selection  becomes  increasingly 
needful,  and  in  the  present  chapter,  accordingly,  the  emphasis 
will  be  laid  upon  the  first-named  group  as  not  only  the  most 
important,  but  the  most  representative  of  the  various  tenden- 
cies of  their  time. 

The  conditions  of  literary  work  in  this  century  have  been 
almost  unduly  stimulating.  The  rapid  advance  in  population, 
wealth,  education,  and  the  means  of  communication  has 
vastly  increased  the  number  of  readers.  Every  one  who  has 
any  thing  to  say  can  say  it  in  print,  and  is  sure  of  some  sort 
of  a  heai'ing.  A  special  feature  of  the  time  is  the  multipli- 
cation of  periodicals.  The  great  London  dailies,  like  the 
Times  and  the  Morning  Post,  which  were  started  during  the 


From  Frexch  Revolution  to  Death  op  Scott.      165 

last  quarter  of  the  18th  century,  were  something  quite  new 
in  journalism.  The  first  of  the  modern  reviews,  the  Edin- 
burgh^ was  established  in  1802,  as  the  organ  of  the  Whig 
party  in  Scotland.  This  was  followed  by  the  London 
Quarterly,  in  1808,  and  by  Blackwood's  Magazine,  in  1817, 
both  in  the  Tory  interest.  The  first  editor  of  the  Edinburgh 
was  Francis  Jeffrey,  who  assembled  about  him  a  distin- 
guished corps  of  contributors,  including  the  versatile  Henry 
Brougham,  afterward  a  great  parliamentary  orator  and  lord 
chancellor  of  England,  and  the  Rev.  Sydney  Smith,  whose 
witty  sayings  are  still  current.  The  first  editor  of  the 
Quarterly  was  William  Gifford,  a  satirist,  who  wrote  the 
Baviad  and  Mmmad'xw  ridicule  of  literary  affectations.  He 
was  succeeded  in  1824  by  John  Gibson  Lockhart,  the  son-in- 
law  of  Walter  Scott,  and  the  author  of  an  excellent  Life  of 
Scott.  Blackwood'a  was  edited  by  John  Wilson,  Professor 
of  Moral  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  who, 
under  the  pen-name  of  "  Christopher  North,"  contributed 
to  his  magazine  a  series  of  brilliant  imaginary  dialogues 
between  famous  characters  of  the  day,  entitled  Noctes  Am- 
brosiance,  because  they  were  supposed  to  take  place  at 
Ambrose's  tavern  in  Edinburgh.  These  papers  were  full  of 
a  profuse,  headlong  eloquence,  of  humor,  literary  criticism, 
and  personalities  interspersed  with  songs  expressive  of  a 
roystering  and  convivial  Toryism  and  an  uproarious  con- 
tempt for  Whigs  and  cockneys.  These  reviews  and  maga- 
zines, and  others  which  sprang  up  beside  them,  became  the 
nuclei  about  which  the  wit  and  scholarship  of  both  parties 
gathered.  Political  controversy  under  the  Regency  and  the 
reign  of  George  IV.  was  thus  carried  on  more  regularly  by 
permanent  organs,  and  no  longer  so  largely  by  privateering, 
in  the  shape  of  pamphlets,  like  Swift's  Public  Spirit  of  the 
Allies,  Johnson's  Taxation  N'o  Tyranny,  and  Burke's  Meflec- 
tions  on  the  Revolution  in  France,  Nor  did  politics  by  any 
means  usurp  the  columns  of  the  reviews.     Literature,  art. 


166        From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

science,  the  whole  circle  of  human  effort  and  achievement 
passed  under  review.  Blackwood'' s,  Fraser's,  and  the  other 
monthlies  published  stories,  poetry,  criticism,  and  corre- 
spondence— every  thing,  in  short,  which  enters  into  the 
make-up  of  our  magazines  to-day,  except  illustrations. 

Two  main  influences,  of  foreign  origin,  have  left  their 
trace  in  the  English  writers  of  the  first  thirty  years  of  the 
19th  century,  the  one  communicated  by  contact  with  the  new 
German  literature  of  the  latter  half  of  the  18th  century,  and 
in  particular  with  the  writings  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  and 
Kant ;  the  other  springing  from  the  events  of  the  French 
Revolution.  The  influence  of  German  upon  English  litera- 
ture in  the  19th  century  was  more  intellectual  and  less 
formal  than  that  of  the  Italian  in  the  16th  and  of  the  French 
in  the  18th.  In  other  words,  the  German  writers  furnished 
the  English  with  ideas  and  ways  of  feeling  rather  than  with 
models  of  style.  Goethe  and  Schiller  did  not  become  sub- 
jects for  literary  imitation  as  Moli^re,  Racine,  and  Boileau 
had  become  in  Pope's  time.  It  was  reserved  for  a  later  gen- 
eration and  for  Thomas  Carlyle  to  domesticate  the  diction 
of  German  prose.  But  the  nature  and  extent  of  this  influ- 
ence can,  perhaps,  best  be  noted  when  we  come  to  take  up 
the  authors  of  the  time  one  by  one. 

The  excitement  caused  by  the  French  Revolution  was 
something  more  obvious  and  immediate.  When  the  Bastile 
fell,  in  1789,  the  enthusiasm  among  the  friends  of  liberty 
and  human  progress  in  England  was  hardly  less  intense  than 
in  France.  It  was  the  dawn  of  a  new  day;  the  shackles 
were  stricken  from  the  slave  ;  all  men  were  free  and  all  men 
were  brothers,  and  radical  young  England  sent  up  a  shout 
that  echoed  the  roar  of  the  Paris  mob.  Wordsworth's  lines  on 
the  Fall  of  the  Bastile^  Coleridge's  Fall  of  Robespierre  and 
Ode  to  France,  and  Southey's  revolutionary  drama,  Wat  Tyler ^ 
gave  expression  to  the  hopes  and  aspirations  of  the  English  de- 
mocracy.   In  after  life,  Wordsworth,  looking  back  regretfully 


Feom  French  Revolutiox  to  Death  of  Scott.     167 

to  those  years  of  promise,  wrote  his  poem  on  the  French  Rev- 
olution as  it  Appeared  to  Enthusiasts  at  its  Commencement. 

Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawa  to  be  alive ; 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven.     0  times 
In  which  the  meager,  stale,  forbidding  ways 
Of  custom,  law,  and  statute  took  at  once 
The  attraction  of  a  country  in  romance. 

Those  were  the  days  in  which  Wordsworth,  then  an  under- 
graduate at  Cambridge,  spent  a  college  vacation  in  tramping 
through  France,  landing  at  Calais  on  the  eve  of  the  very  day 
(July  14,  1790)  on  which  Louis  XVI.  signalized  the  anni- 
versary of  the  fall  of  the  Bastile  by  taking  the  oath  of 
fidelity  to  the  new  constitution.  In  the  following  year 
Wordsworth  revisited  France,  where  he  spent  thirteen 
months,  forming  an  intimacy  with  the  republican  general, 
Beaupuis,  at  Orleans,  and  reaching  Paris  not  long  after  the 
September  massacres  of  1792.  Those  were  the  days,  too,  in 
which  young  Southey  and  young  Coleridge,  having  married 
sisters  at  Bristol,  were  planning  a  "  Pantisocracy,"  or  ideal 
community,  on  the  banks  of  the  Susquehannah,  and  denounc- 
ing the  British  government  for  going  to  war  with  the  French 
Republic,  This  group  of  poets,  who  had  met  one  another 
first  in  the  south  of  England,  came  afterward  to  be  called 
the  Lake  Poets,  from  their  residence  in  the  mountainous  lake 
country  of  Westmoreland  and  Cumberland,  with  which  their 
names,  and  that  of  Wordsworth,  especially,  are  forever 
associated.  The  so-called  "  Lakers  "  did  not,  properly  speak- 
ing, constitute  a  school  of  poetry.  They  differed  greatly 
from  one  another  in  mind  and  art.  But  they  were  connected 
by  social  ties  and  by  religious  and  political  sympathies.  The 
excesses  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  usurpation  of 
Napoleon  disappointed  them,  as  it  did  many  other  English 
libei'als,  and  drove  them  into  the  ranks  of  the  reactionaries. 
Advancing  years  brought  conservatism,  and  they  became  in 
time  loyal  Tories  and  orthodox  churchmen. 


168  From  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

William  Wordsworth  (1V70-1850),  the  chief  of  the  three, 
and,  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the  greatest  English  poet  since 
Milton,  published  his  Lyrical  Ballads  in  1798.  The  volume 
contained  a  few  pieces  by  his  friend  Coleridge — among 
them  the  Ancient  Mariner — and  its  appearance  may  fairly 
be  said  to  mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  English  poetry. 
Wordsworth  regarded  himself  as  a  reformer  of  poetry;  and 
in  the  preface  to  the  second  edition  of  the  Lyrical  Bal- 
lads, he  defended  the  theory  on  which  they  were  composed. 
His  innovations  were  twofold:  in  subject-matter  and  in  dic- 
tion. "  The  principal  object  which  I  proposed  to  myself  in 
these  poems,"  he  said,  "  was  to  choose  incidents  and  situa- 
tions from  common  life.  Low  and  rustic  life  was  generally 
chosen,  because,  in  that  condition,  the  essential  passions  of 
the  heart  find  a  better  soil  in  which  they  can  attain  their 
maturity  .  .  .  and  are  incorporated  with  the  beautiful  and 
permanent  forms  of  nature."  Wordsworth  discarded,  in 
theory,  the  poetic  diction  of  his  predecessors,  and  professed 
to  use  "a  selection  of  the  real  language  of  men  in  a  state  of 
vivid  sensation."  He  adopted,  he  said,  the  language  of  men 
in  rustic  life,  "  because  such  men  hourly  communicate  with 
the  best  objects  from  w^hich  the  best  part  of  language  is 
originally  derived." 

In  the  matter  of  poetic  diction  Wordsworth  did  not,  in 
his  practice,  adhere  to  the  doctrine  of  this  preface.  Many 
of  his  most  admired  poems,  such  as  the  Lines  written  near 
Tintem  Abbey,  the  great  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immor- 
tality, the  Sonnets,  and  many  parts  of  his  longest  poems. 
The  Excursion  and  The  Prelude,  deal  with  philosophic 
thought  and  highly  intellectualized  emotions.  In  all  of  these 
and  in  many  others  the  language  is  rich,  stately,  involved, 
and  as  remote  from  the  "  real  language  "  of  Westmoreland 
shepherds  as  is  the  epic  blank  verse  of  Milton.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  those  of  his  poems  which  were  consciously  written 
in   illustration  of  his   theory,  the  affectation   of  simplicity, 


Fbom  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.      169 

coupled  with  a  defective  sense  of  humor,  sometimes  led  him 
to  the  selection  of  vulgar  and  trivial  themes,  and  the  use  of 
language  which  is  bald,  childish,  or  even  ludicrous.  His  sim- 
plicity is  too  often  the  simplicity  of  Mother  Goose  rather 
than  of  Chaucer.  Instances  of  this  occur  in  such  poems  as 
Peter  Bell,  the  Idiot  Boy,  Goody  Blake  and  Harry  Gill, 
Simon  Lee,  and  the  Wagoner.  But  there  are  multitudes  of 
Wordsworth's  ballads  and  lyrics  which  are  simple  without 
being  silly,  and  which,  in  their  homeliness  and  clear  pro- 
fundity, in  their  production  of  the  strongest  effects  by  the 
fewest  strokes,  are  among  the  choicest  modern  examples  of 
•pure,  as  distinguished  from  decorated,  art.  Such  are  (out  of 
many)  Buth,  Lucy,  She  was  a  Phantom  of  Delight,  To  a 
Highland  Girl,  The  Beverie  of  Poor  Sxisan,  To  the  Cuckoo, 
The  Solitary  Beaper,  We  Are  Seven,  The  Pet  Lamb,  The 
Fountain,  The  Two  April  Mornings,  Besolution  and  Inde- 
pendence, The  Thorn,  and  Yarroxo  Unvisited. 

Wordsworth  was  something  of  a  Quaker  in  poetry,  and 
loved  the  sober  drabs  and  grays  of  life.  Quietism  was  his 
literary  religion,  and  the  sensational  was  to  him  not  merely 
vulgar,  but  almost  wicked.  "  The  human  mind,"  he  wrote,  "  is 
capable  of  being  excited  without  the  application  of  gross  and 
violent  stimulants."  He  disliked  the  far-fetched  themes  and 
high-colored  style  of  Scott  and  Byron.  He  once  told  Landor 
that  all  of  Scott's  poetry  together  was  not  worth  sixpence. 
From  action  and  passion  he  turned  away  to  sing  the  inward 
life  of  the  soul  and  the  outward  life  of  nature.  He  said  : 


And  again : 


To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  Ue  too  deep  lor  tears. 


Long  have  I  loved  what  I  behold. 

The  night  that  charms,  tlie  day  that  cheers; 

The  common  growth  of  mother  earth 

Suffices  me — her  tears,  her  mirth, 

Her  humblest  mirth  and  tears. 


170  Feom  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

Wordsworth's  life  was  outwardly  uneventful.  The  com- 
panionship of  the  mountains  and  of  his  own  thoughts,  the 
sympathy  of  his  household,  the  lives  of  the  dalesmen  and 
cottagers  about  him  furnished  him  with  all  the  stimulus  that 
he  required. 

Love  had  he  found  in  huts  where  poor  men  lie ; 

His  only  teachers  had  been  woods  and  rills, 
The  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky, 

The  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills. 

He  read  little,  but  reflected  much,  and  made  poetry  daily, 
composing,  by  preference,  out  of  doors,  and  dictating  his 
verses  to  some  member  of  his  family.  His  favorite  amanu- 
ensis was  his  sister  Dorothy,  a  woman  of  fine  gifts,  to  whom 
Wordsworth  was  indebted  for  some  of  his  happiest  inspira- 
tions. Her  charming  Memorials  of  a  Tour  in  the  Scottish 
Highlands  records  the  origin  of  many  of  her  brother's  best 
poems.  Throughout  life  Wordsworth  was  remarkably  self- 
centered.  The  ridicule  of  the  reviewers,  against  which  he 
gradually  made  his  way  to  public  recognition,never  disturbed 
his  serene  belief  in  himself,' or  in  the  divine  message  which 
he  felt  himself  commissioned  to  deliver.  He  was  a  slow  and 
serious  person,  a  preacher  as  well  as  a  poet,  with  a  certain 
rigidity,  not  to  say  narrowness,  of  character.  That  plastic 
temperament  which  we  associate  with  poetic  genius  Words- 
worth either  did  not  possess,  or  it  hardened  early.  Whole 
sides  of  life  were  beyond  the  range  of  his  sympathies.  He 
touched  life  at  fewer  points  than  Byron  and  Scott,  but  touched 
it  more  profoundly.  It  is  to  him  that  we  owe  the  phrase 
"  plain  living  and  high  thinking,"  as  also  a  most  noble  illus- 
tration of  it  in  his  own  practice.  His  was  the  wisest  and 
deepest  spirit  among  the  English  poets  of  his  generation, 
though  hardly  the  most  poetic.  He  wrote  too  much,  and, 
attempting  to  make  every  petty  incident  or  reflection  the 
occasion  of  a  poem,  he  finally  reached  the  point  of  composing 


Fbom  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.      171 

verses  On  SeeAng  a  Harp  in  the  shape  of  a  Needle  Case, 
and  on  other  themes  more  worthy  of  Mrs.  Sigourney.  In 
parts  of  his  long  blank- verse  poems,  The  JExcursion,  1814, 
and  The  Prelude — which  was  printed  after  his  death  in  1850, 
though  finished  as  early  as  1806 — the  poetry  wears  very  thin 
and  its  place  is  taken  by  prosaic,  tedious  didacticism.  These 
two  poems  were  designed  as  portions  of  a  still  more  extended 
work,  7%e  Mecluse,  which  was  never  completed.  The  Excur- 
sion consists  mainly  of  philosophical  discussions  on  nature 
and  human  life  between  a  school-master,  a  solitary,  and  an 
itinerant  peddler.  The  Prelude  describes  the  development 
of  Wordsworth's  own  genius.  In  parts  of  The  Excursion 
the  diction  is  fairly  Shaksperian: 

The  good  die  first, 
And  they  whose  hearts  are  dry  as  summer  dust 
Bum  to  the  socket ; 

a  passage  not  only  beautiful  in  itself  but  dramatically  true, 
in  the  mouth  of  the  bereaved  mother  who  utters  it,  to  that 
human  instinct  which  generalizes  a  private  sorrow  into  a 
universal  law.  Much  of  The  Prelude  can  hardly  be  called 
poetry  at  all,  yet  some  of  Wordsworth's  loftiest  poetry  is 
buried  among  its  dreary  wastes,  and  now  and  then,  in  the 
midst  of  commonplaces,  comes  a  flash  of  Miltonic  splendor 

—like 

Golden  cities  ten  months'  journey  deep 
Among  Tartarian  wilds. 

Wordsworth  is,  above  all  things,  the  poet  of  nature.  In 
this  province  he  was  not  without  forerunners.  To  say  noth- 
ing of  Burns  and  Cowper,  there  was  George  Crabbe,  who 
had  published  his  VtUaffem  1783 — fifteen  years  before  the 
Lyrical  Ballads — and  whose  last  poem,  Tales  of  the  Hall, 
came  out  in  1819,  five  years  after  The  Excursion.  Byron 
called  Crabbe  "  Nature's  sternest  painter,  and  her  best."  He 
was  a  minutely  accurate  delineator  of  the  harsher  aspects  of 
rural  life.     He  photographs  a  Gypsy  camp  ;  a  common,  with 


172  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

its  geese  and  donkey;  a  salt  marsh,  a  shabby  village  street, 
or  tumble-down  manse.  But  neither  Crabbe  nor  Cowper  has 
the  imaginative  lift  of  Wordsworth, 

The  light  that  never  was,  on  sea  or  land, 
The  consecration,  and  the  poet's  dream. 

In  a  note  on  a  couplet  in  one  of  his  earliest  poems,  descrip- 
tive of  an  oak-tree  standing  dark  against  the  sunset,  Words- 
worth says :  "  I  recollect  distinctly  the  very  spot  where  this 
struck  me.  The  moment  was  important  in  my  poetical  history, 
for  I  date  from  it  my  consciousness  of  the  infinite  variety  of 
natural  appearances  which  had  been  unnoticed  by  the  poets 
of  any  age  or  country,  and  I  made  a  resolution  to  supply,  in 
some  degree,  the  deficiency."  In  later  life  he  is  said  to  have 
been  impatient  of  any  thing  spoken  or  written  by  another 
about  mountains,  conceiving  himself  to  have  a  monopoly  of 
"the  power  of  hills."  But  Wordsworth  did  not  stop  with 
natural  description.  Matthew  Arnold  has  said  that  the  office 
of  modern  poetry  is  the  "  moral  interpretation  of  Nature." 
Such,  at  any  rate,  was  Wordsworth's  office.  To  him  Nat- 
ure was  alive  and  divine.  He  felt,  under  the  veil  of  phe- 
nomena, 

A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thought :  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused. 

He  approached,  if  he  did  not  actually  reach,  the  view  of 
pantheism  which  identifies  God  with  Nature ;  and  the 
mysticism  of  the  Idealists,  who  identify  Nature  with  the  soul 
of  man.  This  tendency  was  not  inspired  in  Wordsworth 
by  German  philosophy.  He  was  no  metaphysician.  In  his 
rambles  with  Coleridge  about  Nether  Stowey  and  Alfoxden, 
when  both  were  young,  they  had,  indeed,  discussed  Spinoza. 
And  in  the  autumn  of  1798,  after  the  publication  of  the 
Lyrical  Ballads,  the  two  friends  went  together  to  Germany, 
where  Wordsworth  spent  half  a  year.  But  the  literature  and 
philosophy  of  Germany  made  little  direct  impression  upon 


Fkom  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.      173 

Wordsworth.  He  disliked  Goethe,  and  he  quoted  with  ap- 
proval the  saying  of  the  poet  Klopstock,  whom  he  met  at 
Hamburg,  that  he  placed  the  romanticist  Btirger  above  both 
Goethe  and  Schiller, 

It  was  through  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  (1772-1834),  who 
was  pre-eminently  the  thinker  among  the  literary  men  of  his 
generation,  that  the  new  German  thought  found  its  way 
into  England.  During  the  fourteen  months  which  he  spent 
in  Germany — chiefly  at  Ratzburg  and  Gottingen — he  had 
familiarized  himself  with  the  transcendental  philosophy  of 
Immanuel  Kant  and  of  his  continuators,  Fichte  and  Schelling, 
as  well  as  with  the  general  literature  of  Germany.  On  his 
return  to  England,  he  published,  in  1800,  a  free  translation 
of  Schiller's  Wallenstein,  and  through  his  writings,  and  more 
especially  through  his  conversations,  he  became  the  conductor 
by  which  German  philosophic  ideas  reached  the  English  liter- 
ary class. 

Coleridge  described  himself  as  being  from  boyhood  a  book- 
worm and  a  day-dreamer.  He  remained  through  life  an  om- 
nivorous, though  unsystematic,  reader.  He  was  helpless  in 
practical  affairs,  and  his  native  indolence  and  procrastination 
were  increased  by  his  indulgence  in  the  opium  habit.  On  his 
return  to  England,  in  1800,  he  went  to  reside  at  Keswick,  in 
the  Lake  Countrj^,  with  his  brother-in-law,  Southey,  whose 
industry  supported  both  families.  During  his  last  nineteen 
years  Coleridge  found  an  asylum  under  the  roof  of  Mr. 
James  Gilman,  of  Highgate,  near  London,  whither  many  of 
the  best  young  men  in  England  were  accustomed  to  resort  to 
listen  to  Coleridge's  wonderful  talk.  Talk,  indeed,  was  the 
medium  through  which  he  mainly  influenced  his  generation. 
It  cost  him  an  effort  to  put  his  thoughts  on  paper.  His  Table 
Talk — crowded  with  pregnant  paragraphs — was  taken  down 
from  his  lips  by  his  nephew,  Henry  Coleridge.  His  criti- 
cisms of  Shakspere  are  nothing  but  notes,  made  here  and 
there,  from  a  course  of  lectures  delivered  before  the  Royal 


174  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Institute,  and  never  fully  written  out.  Though  only  hints 
and  suggestions,  they  are,  perhaps,  the  most  penetrative  and 
helpful  Shaksperian  criticisms  in  English.  He  was  always 
forming  projects  and  abandoning  them.  He  projected  a 
great  work  on  Christian  philosophy,  which  was  to  have  been 
his  magnum  opus,  but  he  never  wrote  it.  He  projected  an 
epic  poem  on  the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  "  I  schemed  it  at  twenty- 
five,"  he  said,  "but,  alas  !  venturum  expectat.''^  What  bade 
fair  to  be  his  best  poem,  Christabel,  is  a  fragment.  Another 
strangely  beautiful  poem,  Kuhla  Khan — which  came  to  him, 
he  said,  in  sleep — is  even  more  fragmentary.  And  the  most 
important  of  his  prose  remains,  his  JBiographia  Literaria^ 
1817,  a  history  of  his  own  opinions,  breaks  off  abruptly. 

It  was  in  his  suggestiveness  that  Coleridge's  great  service 
to  posterity  resided.  He  was  what  J.  S.  Mill  called  a  "  semi- 
nal mind,"  and  his  thought  had  4;hat  power  of  stimulating 
thought  in  others  which  is  the  mark  and  the  privilege  of  orig- 
inal genius.  Many  a  man  has  owed  to  some  sentence  of  Cole- 
ridge's, if  not  the  awakening  in  himself  of  a  new  intellectual 
life,  at  least  the  starting  of  fruitful  trains  of  reflection  which 
have  modified  his  whole  view  of  certain  great  subjects.  On 
every  thing  that  he  left  is  set  the  stamp  of  high  mental  au- 
thority. He  was  not,  perhaps,  primarily,  he  certainly  was 
not  exclusively,  a  poet.  In  theology,  in  philosophy,  in  polit- 
ical thought  and  literary  criticism  he  set  currents  flowing 
which  are  flowing  yet.  The  terminology  of  criticism,  for 
example,  is  in  his  debt  for  many  of  those  convenient  dis- 
tinctions— such  as  that  between  genius  and  talent,  between 
wit  and  humor,  between  fancy  and  imagination — which  are 
familiar  enough  now,  but  which  he  first  introduced  or 
enforced.  His  definitions  and  apothegms  we  meet  every- 
where. Such  are,  for  example,  the  sayings:  "Every  man  is 
born  an  Aristotelian  or  a  Platonist."  "  Prose  is  words  in 
their  best  order;  poetry,  the  best  words  in  the  best  order." 
And  among  the  bits  of  subtle  interpretation  that  abound  in 


From  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.     175 

his  writings  may  be  mentioned  his  estimate  of  Wordsworth, 
in  the  Siographia  Literaria,  and  his  sketch  of  Hamlet's 
character — one  with  which  he  was  personally  in  strong  sym- 
pathy— in  the  Lectures  on  ShaJcspere. 

The  Broad  Church  party,  in  the  English  Church,  among 
whose  most  eminent  exponents  have  been  W.  Frederic  Robert- 
son, Arnold  of  Rugby,  F.  D.  Maurice,  Charles  Kingsley,  and 
the  late  Dean  Stanley,  traces  its  intellectual  origin  to  Cole- 
ridge's Aids  to  Reflection,  to  his  writings  and  conversations 
in  general,  and  particularly  to  his  ideal  of  a  national  clerisy, 
as  set  forth  in  his  essay  on  Church  and  State.  In  politics,  as 
in  religion,  Coleridge's  conservatism  represents  the  reaction 
against  the  destructive  spirit  of  the  18th  century  and  the 
French  Revolution.  To  this  root-and-branch  democracy 
he  opposed  the  view  that  every  old  belief,  or  institution,  such 
as  the  throne  or  the  Church,  had  served  some  need,  and  had 
a  rational  idea  at  the  bottom  of  it,  to  which  it  might  be  again 
recalled,  and  made  once  more  a  benefit  to  society,  instead  of 
a  curse  and  an  anachronism. 

As  a  poet,  Coleridge  has  a  sure,  though  slender,  hold  upon 
immortal  fame.  No  English  poet  has  "  sung  so  wildly  well" 
as  the  singer  of  Christabel  and  the  Ancient  Mariner.  The 
former  of  these  is,  in  form,  a  romance  in  a  variety  of  meters, 
and  in  substance,  a  tale  of  supernatural  possession,  by  which 
a  lovely  and  innocent  maiden  is  brought  under  the  control  of 
a  witch.  Though  unfinished  and  obscure  in  intention,  it 
haunts  the  imagination  with  a  mystic  power.  Byron  had 
seen  Christabel  in  manuscript,  and  urged  Coleridge  to  pub- 
lish it.  He  hated  all  the  "  Lakers,"  but  when,  on  parting  from 
Lady  Byron,  he  wrote  his  song, 

Fare  thee  well,  and  if  forever, 
Still  forever  fare  thee  well, 

he  prefixed  to  it  the  noble  lines  from  Coleridge's  poem,  be- 
ginning 

Alas !  they  had  been  friends  in  youth. 


176  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

In  that  weird  ballad,  the  Ancient  Mariner,  the  supernatural 
is  handled  with  even  greater  subtlety  than  in  Christabel. 
The  reader  is  led  to  feel  that  amid  the  loneliness  of  the  tropic 
sea  the  line  between  the  earthly  and  the  unearthly  vanishes, 
and  the  poet  leaves  him  to  discover  for  himself  whether  the 
spectral  shapes  that  the  mariner  saw  were  merely  the  visions 
of  the  calenture,  or  a  glimpse  of  the  world  of  spirits.  Cole- 
ridge is  one  of  our  most  perfect  metrists.  The  poet  Swin- 
burne— than  whom  there  can  be  no  higher  authority  on  this 
point  (though  he  is  rather  given  to  exaggeration) — pro- 
nounces Kuhla  Khan,  "for  absolute  melody  and  splendor, 
the  first  poem  in  the  language." 

Robert  Southey,  the  third  member  of  this  group,  was  a 
diligent  worker,  and  one  of  the  most  voluminous  of  English 
writers.  As  a  poet,  he  was  lacking  in  inspiration,  and  his 
big  oriental  epics,  Thalaha,  1801,  and  the  Curse  of  Kehama, 
1810,  are  little  better  than  wax-work.  Of  his  numerous 
works  in  prose,  the  Life  of  Nelson  is,  perhaps,  the  best,  and 
is  an  excellent  biography. 

Several  other  authors  were  more  or  less  closely  associated 
with  the  Lake  Poets  by  residence  or  social  affiliation.  John 
"Wilson,  the  editor  of  Blackwood'' s,  lived  for  some  time, 
when  a  young  man,  at  Elleray,  on  the  banks  of  Windermere. 
He  was  an  athletic  man  of  outdoor  habits,  an  enthusiastic 
sportsman,  and  a  lover  of  natural  scenery.  His  admiration 
of  AVordsworth  was  thought  to  have  led  him  to  imitation  of 
the  latter,  in  his  Isle  of  Palms,  1812,  and  his  other  poetry. 

One  of  Wilson's  companions,  in  his  mountain  walks,  was 
Thomas  De  Quincey,  who  had  been  led  by  his  reverence  for 
Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  to  take  up  his  residence,  in  1808, 
at  Grasmere,  where  he  occupied  for  many  years  the  cottage 
from  which  Wordsworth  had  removed  to  Allan  Bank.  De 
Quincey  was  a  shy,  bookish  man,  of  erratic,  nocturnal  habits, 
who  impresses  one,  personally,  as  a  child  of  genius,  with  a 
child's  helplessness  and  a  child's  sharp  observation.     He  was. 


Feom  Fbench  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.      177 

above  all  things,  a  magazinist.  All  his  writings,  with  one 
exception,  appeared  first  in  the  shape  of  contributions  to 
periodicals;  and  his  essays,  literary  criticisms,  and  miscella- 
neous papers  are  exceedingly  rich  and  varied.  The  most 
famous  of  them  was  his  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium 
Eater^  published  as  a  serial  in  the  London  Magazine^  in 
1821.  He  had  begun  to  take  opium,  as  a  cure  for  the  tooth- 
ache, when  a  student  at  Oxford,  where  he  resided  from  1803 
to  1808.  By  1816  he  had  risen  to  eight  thousand  drops  of 
laudanum  a  day.  For  several  years  after  this  he  experienced 
the  acutest  misery,  and  his  will  suffered  an  entire  paralysis. 
In  1821  he  succeeded  in  reducing  his  dose  to  a  comparatively 
small  allowance,  and  in  shaking  off  his  torpor  so  as  to  become 
capable  of  literary  work.  The  most  impressive  effect  of  the 
opium  habit  was  seen  in  his  dreams,  in  the  unnatural  expan- 
sion of  space  and  time,  and  the  infinite  repetition  of  the 
same  objects.  His  sleep  was  filled  with  dim,  vast  images  ; 
measureless  cavalcades  deploying  to  the  sound  of  orchestral 
music;  an  endless  succession  of  vaulted  halls,  with  staircases 
climbing  to  heaven,  up  ^hich  toiled  eternally  the  same  soli- 
tary figure.  "  Then  came  sudden  alarms,  hurrying  to  and  fro; 
trepidations  of  innumerable  fugitives;  darkness  and  light; 
tempest  and  human  faces."  Many  of  De  Quincey's  papers 
were  autobiographical,  but  there  is  always  something  baffling 
in  these  reminiscences.  In  the  interminable  wanderings  of 
his  pen — for  which,  perhaps,  opium  was  responsible — he  ap- 
pears to  lose  all  trace  of  facts  or  of  any  continuous  story. 
Every  actual  experience  of  his  life  seems  to  have  been  taken 
up  into  a  realm  of  dream,  and  there  distorted  till  the  reader 
sees  not  the  real  figures,  but  the  enormous,  grotesque  shadows 
of  them,  executing  wild  dances  on  a  screen.  An  instance  of 
this  process  is  described  by  himself  in  his  Vision  of  Sudden 
Death.  But  his  unworldliness  and  faculty  of  vision-seeing 
were  not  inconsistent  with  the  keenness  of  judgment  and 
the  justness  and   delicacy  of  perception  displayed  in  his 


1V8  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Biographical  Sketches  of  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  other 
contemporaries:  in  his  critical  papers  on  Pope,  Milton,  Les- 
sing,  Homer  and  the  Homeridoei  his  essay  on  Style;  and  his 
Brief  Appraisal  of  the  Greek  Literature.  His  curious  schol- 
arship is  seen  in  his  articles  on  the  Toilet  of  a  Hebrew  Lady, 
and  the  Casuistry  of  Rotnan  Meals ;  his  ironical  and  some- 
what elaborate  humor  in  his  essay  on  Murder  Considered  as 
One  of  the  Fine  Arts.  Of  his  narrative  pieces  the  most  re- 
markable is  his  Revolt  of  the  Tartars,  describing  the  flight 
of  a  Kalmuck  tribe  of  six  hundred  thousand  souls  from 
Russia  to  the  Chinese  frontier:  a  great  hegira  or  anabasis, 
which  extended  for  four  thousand  miles  over  desert  steppes 
infested  with  foes,  occupied  six  months'  time,  and  left  nearly 
half  of  the  tribe  dead  upon  the  way.  The  subject  was  suited 
to  De  Quincey's  imagination.  It  was  like  one  of  his  own 
opium  visions,  and  he  handled  it  with  a  dignity  and  force 
which  make  the  history  not  altogether  unworthy  of  com- 
parison with  Thucydides's  great  chapter  on  the  Sicilian 
Expedition. 

An  intimate  friend  of  Southey  was  Walter  Savage  Landor, 
a  man  of  kingly  nature,  of  a  leonine  presence,  with  a  most 
stormy  and  unreasonable  temper,  and  yet  with  the  courtliest 
graces  of  manner,  and  with — said  Emerson — "  a  wonderful 
brain,  despotic,  violent,  and  inexhaustible."  He  inherited 
wealth,  and  lived  a  great  part  of  his  life  at  Florence,  where  he 
died  in  1864,  in  his  ninetieth  year.  Dickens,  who  knew  him 
at  Bath,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  made  a  kindly  caricature 
of  him  as  Lawrence  Boythorn,  in  Bleak  House,  whose  "  combi- 
nation of  superficial  ferocity  and  inherent  tenderness,"  testi- 
fies Henry  Crabb  Robinson,  in  his  Diary,  was  true  to  the  life. 
Landor  is  the  most  purely  classical  of  English  writers.  Not 
merely  his  themes,  but  his  whole  way  of  thinking  was  pagan 
and  antique.  He  composed  indifi'erently  in  English  or  Latin, 
preferring  the  latter,  if  any  thing,  in  obedience  to  his  instinct 
for  compression  and  exclusiveness.     Thus,  portions  of  his  nar- 


Fbom  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.     179 

rative  poem,  Gebir,  1798,  were  written  originally  in  Latin 
and  he  added  a  Latin  version,  Gebirius,  to  the  English  edi- 
tion. In  like  manner  his  Hellenics,  1847,  were  mainly  trans- 
lations from  his  Latin  Idyllia  Heroica,  written  years  before. 
The  Hellenic  clearness  and  repose  which  were  absent  from 
his  life,  Landor  sought  in  his  art.  His  poems,  in  their  re- 
straint, their  objectivity,  their  aloofness  from  modern  feel- 
ing, have  something  chill  and  artificial.  The  verse  of  poets 
like  Byron  and  Wordsworth  is  alive  ;  the  blood  runs  in  it. 
But  Landor's  polished,  clean-cut  intaglios  have  been  well  de- 
scribed as  "  written  in  marble."  He  was  a  master  of  fine  and 
solid  prose.  His  Pericles  and  Aspasia  consists  of  a  series  of 
letters  passing  between  the  great  Athenian  demagogue  ;  the 
hetaira,  Aspasia  ;  her  friend,  Cleone  of  Miletus  ;  Anaxago- 
rus,  the  philosopher,  and  Pericles's  nephew,  Alcibiades.  In 
this  masterpiece,  the  intellectual  life  of  Athens,  at  its  period 
of  highest  refinement,  is  brought  before  the  reader  with  sin- 
gular vividness,  and  he  is  made  to  breathe  an  atmosphere  of 
high-bred  grace,  delicate  wit,  and  thoughtful  sentiment,  ex- 
pressed in  English  "  of  Attic  choice."  The  Imaginary  Con- 
versations, 1824-1846,  were  Platonic  dialogues  between  a 
great  variety  of  historical  characters  ;  between,  for  example, 
Dante  and  Beatrice,  Washington  and  Franklin,  Queen  Eliza- 
beth and  Cecil,  Xenophon  and  Cyrus  the  Younger,  Bonaparte 
and  the  president  of  the  Senate.  Landor's  writings  have 
never  been  popular  ;  they  address  an  aristocracy  of  scholars  ; 
and  Byron — whom  Landor  disliked  and  considered  vulgar — 
sneered  at  him  as  a  writer  who  "  cultivated  much  private  re- 
nown in  the  shape  of  Latin  verses."  He  said  of  himself  that 
he  "  never  contended  with  a  contemporary,  but  walked  alone 
on  the  far  Eastern  uplands,  meditating  and  remembering." 

A  school-mate  of  Coleridge  at  Christ's  Hospital,  and  his 
friend  and  correspondent  through  life,  was  Charles  Lamb, 
one  of  the  most  charming  of  English  essayists.  He  was  a 
bachelor,  who  lived  alone  with  his  sister  Mary,  a  lovable  and 


180  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

intellectual  woman,  but  subject  to  recurring  attacks  of  mad- 
ness. Lamb  was  "  a  notched  and  cropped  scrivener,  a  votary 
of  the  desk;"  a  clerk,  that  is,  in  the  employ  of  the  East  India 
Company.  He  was  of  antiquarian  tastes,  an  ardent  play- 
goer, a  lover  of  whist  and  of  the  London  streets  ;  and  these 
tastes  are  reflected  in  his  Essays  of  Elia,  contributed  to  the 
London  Magazine  and  reprinted  in  book  form  in  1823.  From 
his  mousing  among  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  and  such  old 
humorists  as  Burton  and  Fuller,  his  own  style  imbibed  a  pe- 
culiar quaintness  and  pungency.  His  Specimens  of  English 
Dramatic  Poets,  1808,  is  admirable  for  its  critical  insight. 
In  1802  he  paid  a  visit  to  Coleridge  at  Keswick,  in  the  Lake 
Country  ;  but  he  felt  or  affected  a  whimsical  horror  of  the 
mountains,  and  said,  "  Fleet  Street  and  the  Strand  are  better 
to  live  in."  Among  the  best  of  his  essays  are  Dream  Chil- 
dren, Poor  Melations,  The  Artificial  Comedy  of  the  Last 
Century,  Old  China,  Poast  Pig,  A  Defense  of  Chimney- 
sweeps, A  Complaint  of  the  Decay  of  Beggars  in  the  Me- 
tropolis, and  The  Old  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple. 

The  romantic  movement,  preluded  by  Gray,  Collins,  Chat- 
terton,  Macpherson,  and  others,  culminated  in  Walter  Scott 
(1721-1832).  His  passion  for  the  mediaeval  was  excited  by 
reading  Percy's  Peliques  when  he  was  a  boy  ;  and  in  one  of 
his  school  themes  he  maintained  that  Ariosto  was  a  greater 
poet  than  Homer.  He  began  early  to  collect  manuscript 
ballads,  suits  of  armor,  pieces  of  old  plate,  border-horns, 
and  similar  relics.  He  learned  Italian  in  order  to  read  the 
romancers — Ariosto,  Tasso,  Pulci,  and  Boiardo — preferring 
them  to  Dante.  He  studied  Gothic  architecture,  heraldry, 
and  the  art  of  fortification,  and  made  drawings  of  famous 
ruins  and  battle-fields.  In  particular  he  read  eagerly  every 
thing  that  he  could  lay  hands  on  relating  to  the  history, 
legends,  and  antiquities  of  the  Scottish  border — the  vale  of 
Tweed,  Teviotdale,  Ettrick  Forest,  and  the  Yarrow,  of  all 
which  land  he  became  the  laureate,  as  Burns  had  been  of 


From  Fbench  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.     181 

Ayrshire  and  the  "West  Country."  Scott,  like  Wordsworth, 
was  an  outdoor  poet.  He  spent  much  time  in  the  saddle, 
and  was  fond  of  horses,  dogs,  hunting,  and  salmon-fishing. 
He  had  a  keen  eye  for  the  beauties  of  natural  scenery,  though 
"  more  especially,"  he  admits,  "  when  combined  with  ancient 
ruins  or  remains  of  our  forefathers'  piety  or  splendor."  He  had 
the  historic  imagination,  and,  in  creating  the  historical  novel, 
he  was  the  first  to  throw  a  poetic  glamour  over  European 
annals.  In  1803  Wordsworth  visited  Scott  at  Lasswade, 
near  Edinburgh  ;  and  Scott  afterward  returned  the  visit  at 
Grasmere.  Wordsworth  noted  that  his  guest  was  "  full  of 
anecdote,  and  averse  from  disquisition."  The  Englishman 
was  a  moralist  and  much  given  to  '*  disquisition,"  while  the 
Scotchman  was,  above  all  things,  a  raconteur,  and,  perhaps,  on 
the  whole,  the  foremost  of  British  story-tellers.  Scott's  Tory- 
ism, too,  was  of  a  different  stripe  from  Wordsworth's,  being 
rather  the  result  of  sentiment  and  imagination  than  of  philoso- 
phy and  reflection.  His  mind  struck  deep  root  in  the  past;  his 
local  attachments  and  family  pride  were  intense.  Abbots- 
ford  was  his  darling,  and  the  expenses  of  this  domain  and  of 
the  baronial  hospitality  which  he  there  extended  to  all  comers 
were  among  the  causes  of  his  bankruptcy.  The  enormous 
toil  which  he  exacted  of  himself,  to  pay  off  the  debt  of 
£117,000,  contracted  by  the  failure  of  his  publishers,  cost  him 
his  life.  It  is  said  that  he  was  more  gratified  when  the  Prince 
Regent  created  him  a  baronet,  in  1820,  than  by  the  public 
recognition  that  he  acquired  as  the  author  of  the  Waverley 
Novels. 

Scott  was  attracted  by  the  romantic  side  of  German  litera- 
ture. His  first  published  poem  was  a  translation  made  in 
1796  from  Burger's  wild  ballad,  Leonora.  He  followed  this 
up  with  versions  of  the  same  poet's  Wilde  Jager,  of  Goethe's 
violent  drama  of  feudal  life,  Gotz  Von  Berlichingen,  and 
with  other  translations  from  the  German,  of  a  similar  class. 
On  his  horseback  trips  through  the  border,  where  he  studied 


182        From  Chaucee  to  Tennyson. 

the  primitive  manners  of  the  Liddesdale  people,  and  took 
down  old  ballads  from  the  recitation  of  ancient  dames  and 
cottagers,  he  amassed  the  materials  for  his  Minstrelsy  of  the 
Scottish  Border,  1802.  But  the  first  of  his  original  poems 
was  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  published  in  1805,  and 
followed,  in  quick  sucession  by  Marmion,  the  Lady  of  the 
Lake,  Mokehy,  the  Lord  of  the  Lsles,  and  a  volume  of  ballads 
and  lyrical  pieces,  all  issued  during  the  years  1806-1814. 
The  popularity  won  by  this  series  of  metrical  romances  was 
immediate  and  wide-spread.  Nothing  so  fresh  or  so  brilliant 
had  appeared  in  English  poetry  for  nearly  two  centuries. 
The  reader  was  hurried  along  through  scenes  of  rapid  action, 
whose  effect  was  heightened  by  wild  landscapes  and  pictur- 
esque manners.  The  pleasure  was  a  passive  one.  There  was 
no  deep  thinking  to  perplex,  no  subtler  beauties  to  pause 
upon  ;  the  feelings  were  stirred  pleasantly,  but  not  deeply; 
the  effect  was  on  the  surface.  The  spell  employed  was  nov- 
elty— or,  at  most,  wonder — and  the  chief  emotion  aroused  was 
breathless  interest  in  the  progress  of  the  story.  Carlyle 
said  that  Scott's  genius  was  in  extenso,  rather  than  in  intenso, 
and  that  its  great  praise  was  its  healthiness.  This  is  true  of 
his  verse,  but  not  altogether  so  of  his  prose,  which  exhibits 
deeper  qualities.  Some  of  Scott's  most  perfect  poems,  too, 
are  his  shorter  ballads,  like  Jock  o'  Hazeldean,  and  Proud 
Maisie  is  in  the  Wood,  which  have  a  greater  intensity  and 
compression  than  his  metrical  tales. 

From  1814  to  1831  Scott  wrote  and  published  the  Waver- 
ley  novels,  some  thirty  in  number;  if  we  consider  the  amount 
of  work  done,  the  speed  with  which  it  was  done,  and  the 
general  average  of  excellence  maintained,  perhaps  the  most 
marvelous  literary  feat  on  record.  The  series  was  issued 
anonymously,  and  takes  its  name  from  the  first  number: 
Waverley,  or  "Tis  Sixty  Years  Since.  This  was  founded 
upon  the  rising  of  the  clans,  in  1745,  in  support  of  the  Young 
Pretender,  Charles  Edward  Stuart,  and  it  revealed  to  the 


From  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.    183 

English  public  that  almost  foreign  country  which  lay  just 
across  their  threshold,  the  Scottish  Highlands.  The  Waver- 
ley  novels  remain,  as  a  whole,  unequaled  as  historical  fiction, 
although  here  and  there  a  single  novel,  like  George  Eliot's 
Romola^  or  Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond^  or  Kingsley's  Hy- 
patia,  may  have  attained  a  place  beside  the  best  of  them. 
They  were  a  novelty  when  they  appeared.  English  prose 
fiction  had  somewhat  declined  since  the  time  of  Fielding  and 
Goldsmith.  There  were  truthful,  though  rather  tame,  de- 
lineations of  provincial  life,  like  Jane  Austen's  Sense  and 
Sensibility,  1811,  and  Pride  and  Prejudice,  1813;  or  Maria 
Edge  worth's  Popular  Tales,  1804.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
were  Gothic  romances,  like  the  Monk  of  Matthew  Gregory 
Lewis,  to  whose  Tales  of  Wonder  some  of  Scott's  translations 
from  the  German  had  been  contributed;  or  like  Anne  Rad- 
cliflfe's  Mysteries  of  Udolpho.  The  great  original  of  this 
school  of  fiction  was  Horace  Walpole's  Castle  of  Otrayito, 
1 765 ;  an  absurd  tale  of  secret  trap-doors,  subterranean  vaults, 
apparitions  of  monstrous  mailed  figures  and  colossal  hel- 
mets, pictures  that  descend  from  their  frames,  and  hollow 
voices  that  proclaim  the  ruin  of  ancient  families. 

Scott  used  the  machinery  of  romance,  but  he  was  not 
merely  a  romancer,  or  an  historical  novelist  even,  and  it  is  not, 
as  Carlyle  implies,  the  buff -belts  and  jerkins  which  princi- 
pally interest  us  in  his  heroes.  Ivanhoe  and  Kenilworth.  and 
the  Talisman  are,  indeed,  romances  pure  and  simple,  and 
very  good  romances  at  that.  But,  in  novels  such  as  Rob  Hoy, 
the  Antiquary,  the  Heart  of  Midlothian,  and  the  Pride  of 
Lammermoor,  Scott  drew  from  contemporary  life,  and  from 
his  intimate  knowledge  of  Scotch  character.  The  story  is 
there,  with  its  entanglement  of  plot  and  its  exciting  advent- 
ures, but  there  are  also,  as  truly  as  in  Shakspere,  though  not  in 
the  same  degree,  the  observation  of  life,  the  knowledge  of 
men,  the  power  of  dramatic  creation.  No  writer  awakens  in 
his  readers  a  warmer  personal  affection  than  Walter  Scott, 


184  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

the  brave,  honest,  kindly  gentleman;  the  noblest  figure  among 
the  literary  men  of  his  generation. 

Another  Scotch  poet  was  Thomas  Campbell,  whose  Pleas- 
ures of  Hope,  1799,  was  written  in  Pope's  couplet,  and  in 
the  stilted  diction  of  the  18th  century.  Gertrude  of  Wy- 
oming, 1809,  a  long  narrative  poem  in  Spenserian  stanza,  is 
untrue  to  the  scenery  and  life  of  Pennsylvania,  where  its 
scene  is  laid.  But  Campbell  turned  his  rhetorical  manner 
and  his  clanking,  martial  verse  to  fine  advantage  in  such 
pieces  as  Hohenlinderiy  Ye  Mariners  of  England^  and  the 
Battle  of  the  Baltic.  These  have  the  true  lyric  fire,  and 
rank  among  the  best  English  war-songs. 

When  Scott  was  asked  why  he  had  left  off  writing  poetry, 
he  answered,  "Byron  het  me."  George  Gordon  Byron 
(1788-1824)  was  a  young  man  of  twenty-four  when,  on  his 
return  from  a  two  years'  sauntering  through  Portugal,  Spain, 
Albania,  Greece,  and  the  Levant,  he  published,  in  the  first 
two  cantos  of  Childe  Harold,  1812,  a  sort  of  poetic  itinerary 
of  his  experiences  and  impressions.  The  poem  took,  rather 
to  its  author's  surprise,  who  said  that  he  woke  one  morning 
and  found  himself  famous.  Childe  Harold  opened  a  new 
field  to  poetry:  the  romance  of  travel,  the  picturesque  aspects 
of  foreign  scenery,  manners,  and  costumes.  It  is  instructive 
of  the  difference  between  the  two  ages,  in  poetic  sensibility 
to  such  things,  to  compare  Byron's  glowing  imagery  with 
Addison's  tame  Letter  from  Italy,  written  a  century  before. 
Childe  Harold  was  followed  by  a  series  of  metrical  tales, 
the  Giaour,  the  Bride  of  Ahydos,  the  Corsair,  Lara,  the 
Siege  of  Corinth,  Parisina,  and  the  Prisoner  of  ChiUon,  all 
written  in  the  years  181 3-1 816.  These  poems  at  once  took  the 
place  of  Scott's  in  popular  interest,  dazzling  a  public  that 
had  begun  to  weary  of  chivalry  romances  with  pictures  of 
Eastern  life,  with  incidents  as  exciting  as  Scott's,  descriptions 
as  highly  colored,  and  a  much  greater  intensity  of  passion. 
So  far  as  they  depended  for  this  interest  upon  the  novelty 


Feom  Fkench  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.     185 

of  their  accessories,  the  effect  was  a  temporary  one.  Serag- 
lios, divans,  bulbuls,  Gulistans,  Zuleikas,  and  other  oriental 
properties  deluged  English  poetry  for  a  time,  and  then  sub- 
sided ;  even  as  the  tide  of  moss-troopers,  sorcerers,  hermits, 
and  feudal  castles  had  already  had  its  rise  and  fall. 

But  there  was  a  deeper  reason  for  the  impression  made  by 
BjTon's  poetry  upon  his  contemporaries.  He  laid  his  finger 
right  on  the  sore  spot  in  modern  life.  He  had  the  disease 
with  which  the  time  was  sick,  the  world-weariness,  the  des- 
peration which  proceeded  from  "  passion  incapable  of  being 
converted  into  action."  We  find  this  tone  in  much  of  the 
literature  which  followed  the  failure  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  the  Napoleonic  wars.  From  the  irritations  of  that 
period,  the  disappointment  of  high  hopes  for  the  future  of 
the  race,  the  growing  religious  disbelief,  and  the  revolt  of 
democracy  and  free  thought  against  conservative  reaction, 
sprang  what  Southey  called  the  "  Satanic  school,"  which 
spoke  its  loudest  word  in  Byron.  Titanic  is  the  better  word, 
for  the  rebellion  was  not  against  God,  but  Jupiter;  that  is, 
against  the  State,  Church,  and  society  of  Byron's  day;  against 
George  III.,  the  Tory  cabinet  of  Lord  Castlereagh,  the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  the  bench  of  bishops,  London  gossip,  the 
British  constitution,  and  British  cant.  In  these  poems  of 
Byron,  and  in  his  dramatic  experiments,  Manfred  and  Gain^ 
there  is  a  single  figure — the  figure  of  Byron  under  various 
masks — and  one  pervading  mood,  a  restless  and  sardonic 
gloom,  a  weariness  of  life,  a  love  of  solitude,  and  a  melan- 
choly exaltation  in  the  presence  of  the  wilderness  and  the 
sea.  Byron's  hero  is  always  represented  as  a  man  originally 
noble,  whom  some  great  wrong,  by  others,  or  some  myste- 
rious crime  of  his  own,  has  blasted  and  embittered,  and  who 
carries  about  the  world  a  seared  heart  and  a  somber  brow. 
Harold — who  may  stand  as  a  type  of  all  his  heroes — has 
run  "  through  sin's  labyrinth,"  and  feeling  the  "  fullness  of 
satiety,"  is  drawn  abroad  to  roam,  "  the  wandering  exile  of 


186  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

his  own  dark  mind."  The  loss  of  a  capacity  for  pure,  un- 
jaded  emotion  is  the  constant  burden  of  Byron's  lament; 

Xo  more,  no  more,  0  never  more  on  me 
The  freshness  of  the  heart  shall  fall  like  dew : 
and  again, 

0  could  I  feel  as  I  have  felt — or  be  what  I  have  been, 
Or  weep  as  I  could  once  have  wept,  o'er  many  a  vanished  scene ; 
As  springs  in  deserts  found  seem  sweet,  all  brackish  tho'  they  be, 
So,  midst  the  withered  waste  of  life,  tiiose  tears  would  flow  to  me. 

This  mood  was  sincere  in  Byron;  but  by  cultivating  it,  and 
posing  too  long  in  one  attitude,  he  became  self-conscious  and 
theatrical,  and  much  of  his  serious  poetry  has  a  false  ring. 
His  example  infected  the  minor  poetry  of  the  time,  and  it 
was  quite  natural  that  Thackeray — who  represented  a  gen- 
eration that  had  a  very  different  ideal  of  the  heroic — should 
be  provoked  into  describing  Byron  as  "  a  big  sulky  dandy." 

Byron  was  well  fitted  by  birth  and  temperament  to  be  the 
spokesman  of  this  fierce  discontent.  He  inherited  from  his 
mother  a  haughty  and  violent  temper,  and  profligate  ten- 
dencies from  his  father.  He  was  through  life  a  spoiled 
child,  whose  main  characteristic  was  willfulness.  He  liked 
to  shock  people  by  exaggerating  his  wickedness,  or  by  per- 
versely maintaining  the  wrong  side  of  a  dispute.  But  he 
had  traits  of  bravery  and  generosity.  Women  loved  him, 
and  he  made  strong  friends.  There  was  a  careless  charm 
about  him  which  fascinated  natures  as  unlike  each  other  as 
Shelley  and  Scott.  By  the  death  of  the  fifth  Lord  Byron 
without  issue,  Byron  came  into  a  title  and  estates  at  the  age 
of  ten.  Though  a  liberal  in  politics  he  had  aristocratic  feel- 
ings, and  was  vain  of  his  rank  as  he  was  of  his  beauty.  He 
was  educated  at  Harrow  and  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
where  he  was  idle  and  dissipated,  but  did  a  great  deal  of 
miscellaneous  reading.  He  took  some  of  his  Cambridge  set 
— Hobhouse,  Matthews,  and  others — to  Newstead  Abbey,  his 
ancestral  seat,  where  they  filled  the  ancient  cloisters  with 


Feom  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.     187 

eccentric  orgies.  Byron  was  strikingly  handsome.  His  face 
had  a  spiritual  paleness  and  a  classic  regularity,  and  his  dark 
hair  curled  closely  to  his  head.  A  deformity  in  one  of  his 
feet  was  a  mortification  to  him,  and  impaired  his  activity  in 
many  ways,  although  he  prided  himself  upon  his  powers  as  a 
swimmer. 

In  1816,  when  at  the  height  of  his  literary  and  social  eclat 
in  London,  he  married.  In  February  of  the  following  year 
he  was  separated  from  Lady  Byron,  and  left  England  for- 
ever, pursued  by  the  execrations  of  outraged  respectability. 
In  this  chorus  of  abuse  there  was  mingled  a  share  of  cant; 
but  Byron  got,  on  the  whole,  what  he  deserved.  From 
Switzerland,  where  he  spent  a  summer  by  Lake  Leman,  with 
the  Shelleys ;  from  Venice,  Ravenna,  Pisa,  and  Rome,  scan- 
dalous reports  of  his  intrigues  and  his  wild  debaucheries  were 
wafted  back  to  England,  and  with  these  came  poem  after 
poem,  full  of  burning  genius,  pride,  scorn,  and  anguish,  and 
all  hurling  defiance  at  English  public  opinion.  The  third 
and  fourth  cantos  of  Ghilde  Harold,  1816-1818,  were  a  great 
advance  upon  the  first  two,  and  contain  the  best  of  Byron's 
serious  poetry.  He  has  written  his  name  all  over  the  conti- 
nent of  Europe,  and  on  a  hundred  memorable  spots  has  made 
the  scenery  his  own.  On  the  field  of  Waterloo,  on  "  the 
castled  crag  of  Drachenfels,"  "  by  the  blue  rushing  of  the 
arrowy  Rhone,"  in  Venice  on  the  Bridge  of  Sighs,  in  the 
Coliseum  at  Rome,  and  among  the  "  Isles  of  Greece,"  the 
tourist  is  compelled  to  see  with  Byron's  eyes  and  under  the 
associations  of  his  pilgrimage.  In  his  later  poems,  such  as 
Beppo,  1818,  and  Don  Juan^  1819-1823,  he  passed  into  his 
second  manner,  a  mocking  cynicism  gaining  ground  upon  the 
somewhat  stagey  gloom  of  his  early  poetry — Mephistophiles 
gradually  elbowing  out  Satan.  Don  Juan,  though  morally 
the  worst,  is  intellectually  the  most  vital  and  representative 
of  Byron's  poems.  It  takes  up  into  itself  most  fully  the  life 
of  the  time ;    exhibits   most    thoroughly  the  characteristic 


188  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

alternations  of  Byron's  moods  and  the  prodigal  resources  of 
wit,  passion,  and  understanding,  which — rather  than  imagina- 
tion— were  his  prominent  qualities  as  a  poet.  The  hero,  a 
graceless,  amorous  stripling,  goes  wandering  from  Spain  to 
the  Greek  islands  and  Constantinople,  thence  to  St.  Peters- 
bui'g,  and  finally  to  England.  Every-where  his  seductions 
are  successful,  and  Byron  uses  him  as  a  means  of  exposing 
the  weakness  of  the  human  heart  and  the  rottenness  of  so- 
ciety in  all  countries.  In  1823,  breaking  away  from  his  life 
of  selfish  indulgence  in  Italy,  Byron  threw  himself  into  the 
cause  of  Grecian  liberty,  which  he  had  sung  so  gloriously  in 
the  Isles  of  Greece.  He  died  at  Missolonghi,  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  of  a  fever  contracted  by  exposure  and  overwork. 

Byron  was  a  great  poet  but  not  a  great  literary  artist.  He 
wrote  negligently  and  with  the  ease  of  assured  strength;  his 
mind  gathering  heat  as  it  moved,  and  pouring  itself  forth  in 
reckless  profusion.  His  work  is  diffuse  and  imperfect; 
much  of  it  is  melodrama  or  speech-making,  rather  than 
true  poetry.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  much,  very  much 
of  it  is  unexcelled  as  the  direct,  strong,  sincere  utter- 
ance of  personal  feeling.  Such  is  the  quality  of  his  best 
lyrics,  like  When  We  Two  Parted,  the  Elegy  on  Thyrza, 
Stanzas  to  Augusta,  She  Walks  in  Beauty,  and  of  innumer- 
able passages,  lyrical  and  descriptive,  in  his  longer  poems. 
He  had  not  the  wisdom  of  Wordsworth,  nor  the  rich  and 
subtle  imagination  of  Coleridge,  Shelley,  and  Keats  when 
they  were  at  their  best.  But  he  had  greater  body  and  motive 
force  than  any  of  them.  He  is  the  strongest  personality 
among  English  poets  since  Milton,  though  his  strength  was 
wasted  by  want  of  restraint  and  self -culture.  In  Milton  the 
passion  was  tliere,  but  it  was  held  in  check  by  the  will  and 
the  artistic  conscience,  made  subordinate  to  good  ends,  rip- 
ened by  long  reflection,  and  finally  uttered  in  forms  of 
perfect  and  harmonious  beauty.  Byron's  love  of  Nature  was 
quite  different  in  kind  from  Wordsworth's.     Of  all  English 


Fbom  Fbench  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.     189 

poets  he  has  sung  most  lyrically  of  that  national  theme,  the 
sea;  as  witness,  among  many  other  passages,  the  famous 
apostrophe  to  the  ocean  which  closes  Childe  Harold^  and  the 
opening  of  the  third  canto  in  the  same  poem, 

Once  more  upon  the  waters,  etc. 

He  had  a  passion  for  night  and  storm,  because  they  made 

him  forget  himself. 

Most  glorious  night  1 
Thou  wert  not  sent  for  slumber!     Let  me  be 
A  sharer  in  thy  fierce  and  far  delight, 
A  portion  of  the  tempest  and  of  thee  I 

Byron's  literary  executor  and  biographer  was  the  Irish 
poet,  Thomas  Moore,  a  born  song-writer,  whose  Irish  Melo- 
dies, set  to  old  native  airs,  are,  like  Burns's,  genuine,  spon- 
taneous singing,  and  run  naturally  to  music.  Songs  such  as 
the  Meeting  of  the  Waters,  The  Harp  of  Tara,  Those  Even- 
ing Bells,  the  Light  of  Other  Days,  Arahy's  Daughter,  and 
the  Ttast  Rose  of  Summer  were,  and  still  are,  popular  favor- 
ites. Moore's  Oriental  romance,  Lalla  Hookh,  1817,  is  over- 
laden with  ornament  and  with  a  sugary  sentiment  that  clogs 
the  palate.  He  had  the  quick  Irish  wit,  sensibility  rather 
than  passion,  and  fancy  rather  than  imagination. 

Byron's  friend,  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  (1792-1822),  was 
also  in  fiery  revolt  against  all  conventions  and  institutions, 
though  his  revolt  proceeded  not,  as  in  Byron's  case,  from  the 
turbulence  of  passions  which  brooked  no  restraint,  but  rather 
from  an  intellectual  impatience  of  any  kind  of  control.  He 
was  not,  like  Byron,  a  sensual  man,  but  temperate  and  chaste. 
He  was,  indeed,  in  his  life  and  in  his  poetry,  as  nearly  a  dis- 
embodied spirit  as  a  human  creature  can  be.  The  German 
poet,  Heine,  said  that  liberty  was  the  religion  of  this  century, 
and  of  this  religion  Shelley  was  a  worshiper.  His  rebellion 
against  authority  began  early.  He  refused  to  fag  at  Eton, 
and  was  expelled  from  Oxford  for  publishing  a  tract  on  the 
Necessity  of  Atheism.     At  nineteen,  he  ran  away  with  Har- 


190  From  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

riet  Westbrook,  and  was  married  to  her  in  Scotland.  Three 
years  later  he  deserted  her  for  Mary  Godwin,  with  whom  he 
eloped  to  Switzerland.  Two  years  after  this  his  first  wife 
drowned  herself  in  the  Serpentine,  and  Shelley  was  then 
formally  wedded  to  Mary  Godwin.  All  this  is  rather  start- 
ling, in  the  bare  statement  of  it,  yet  it  is  not  inconsistent  with 
the  many  testimonies  that  exist  to  Shelley's  singular  purity 
and  beauty  of  character,  testimonies  borne  out  by  the  evi- 
dence of  his  own  writings.  Impulse  with  him  took  the  place 
of  conscience.  Moral  law,  accompanied  by  the  sanction  of 
power,  and  imposed  by  outside  authority,  he  rejected  as  a 
form  of  tyranny.  His  nature  lacked  robustness  and  ballast. 
Byron,  who  was  at  the  bottom  intensely  practical,  said  that 
Shelley's  philosophy  was  too  spiritual  and  romantic.  Hazlitt, 
himself  a  Radical,  wrote  of  Shelley :  "  He  has  a  fire  in  his 
eye,  a  fever  in  his  blood,  a  maggot  in  his  brain,  a  hectic  flutter 
in  his  speech,  which  mark  out  the  philosophic  fanatic.  He  is 
sanguine-complexioned  and  shrill-voiced."  It  was,  perhaps, 
with  some  recollection  of  this  last-mentioned  trait  of  Shelley 
the  man,  that  Carlyle  wrote  of  Shelley  the  poet,  that  "  the 
sound  of  him  was  shrieky,"  and  that  he  had  "  filled  the  earth 
with  an  inarticulate  wailing." 

His  career  as  a  poet  began,  characteristically  enough,  with 
the  publication,  while  at  Oxford,  of  a  volume  of  political 
rimes,  entitled  Margaret  N'icholson'' s  Hemains,  Margaret 
Nicholson  being  the  crazy  woman  who  tried  to  stab  George 
III.  His  boyish  poem.  Queen  Mab,  was  ■published  in  1813; 
Alastor  in  1816,  and  the  Revolt  of  Islam — his  longest — in 
1818,  all  before  he  was  twenty-one.  These  were  filled  with 
splendid,  though  unsubstantial,  imagery,  but  they  were  ab- 
stract in  subject,  and  had  the  faults  of  incoherence  and  form- 
lessness which  make  Shelley's  longer  poems  wearisome  and 
confusing.  They  sought  to  embody  his  social  creed  of  per- 
fectionism, as  well  as  a  certain  vague  pantheistic  system  of 
belief  in  a  spirit  of  love  in  nature  and  man,  whose  presence 


Fkom  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.     191 

is  a  constant  source  of  obscurity  in  Shelley's  verse.  In  1818 
he  went  to  Italy,  where  the  last  four  years  of  his  life  were 
passed,  and  where,  under  the  influences  of  Italian  art  and 
poetry,  his  writing  became  deeper  and  stronger.  He  was  fond 
of  yachting,  and  spent  much  of  his  time  upon  the  Mediter- 
ranean. In  the  summer  of  1822  his  boat  was  swamped  in  a 
squall,  off  the  Gulf  of  Spezzia,  and  Shelley's  drowned  body 
was  washed  ashore,  and  burned  in  the  presence  of  Byron  and 
Leigh  Hunt.  The  ashes  were  entombed  in  the  Protestant 
cemetery  at  Rome,  with  the  epitaph,  Gor  cordium. 

Shelley's  best  and  maturest  work,  nearly  all  of  which  was 
done  in  Italy,  includes  his  tragedy.  The  Cenci,  1819,  and  his 
lyrical  drama,  JPrometheus  Unbound,  1821.  The  first  of  these 
has  a  unity  and  a  definiteness  of  contour  unusual  with  Shel- 
ley, and  is,  with  the  exception  of  some  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing's, the  best  English  tragedy  since  Otway.  Prometheus 
represented  to  Shelley's  mind  the  human  spirit  fighting 
against  divine  oppression,  and  in  his  portrayal  of  this  figure 
he  kept  in  mind  not  only  the  Prometheus  of  ^schylus, 
but  the  Satan  of  Paradise  Lost.  Indeed,  in  this  poem, 
Shelley  came  nearer  to  the  sublime  than  any  English  poet 
since  Milton.  Yet  it  is  in  lyrical,  rather  than  in  dramatic, 
quality  that  Prometheus  Unbound  is  great.  If  Shelley  be 
not,  as  his  latest  editor,  Mr.  Forman,  claims  him  to  be,  the 
foremost  of  English  lyrical  poets,  he  is  at  least  the  most 
lyrical  of  them.  He  had,  in  a  supreme  degree,  the  "  lyric 
cry."  His  vibrant  nature  trembled  to  every  breath  of  emo- 
tion, and  his  nerves  craved  ever  newer  shocks;  to  pant,  to 
quiver,  to  thrill,  to  grow  faint  in  the  spasm  of  intense  sensa- 
tion. The  feminine  cast  observable  in  Shelley's  portrait  is 
borne  out  by  this  tremulous  sensibility  in  his  verse.  It  is 
curious  how  often  he  uses  the  metaphor  of  wings:  of  the 
winged  spirit,  soaring,  like  his  skylark,  till  lost  in  music,  rapt- 
ure, light,  and  then  falling  back  to  earth.  Three  successive 
moods — longing,  ecstasy,  and  the  revulsion  of  despair — are 


192        Fbom  Chauceb  to  Tenntson. 

expressed  in  many  of  his  lyrics;  as  in  the  Hymn  to  the  Spirit 
of  Nature  in  Prometheus,  in  the  ode  To  a  Skylark,  and  in  the 
JLines  to  an  Indian  Air — Edgar  Poe's  favorite.  His  passion- 
ate desire  to  lose  himself  in  Nature,  to  become  one  with  that 
spirit  of  love  and  beauty  in  the  universe  which  was  to  him 
in  place  of  God,  is  expressed  in  the  Ode  to  the  West  Wind^ 
his  most  perfect  poem  : 

Make  me  thy  lyre,  even  as  the  forest  is ; 

What  if  my  leaves  are  falling  like  its  own  I 
The  tumult  of  thy  mighty  harmonies 

Will  take  from  both  a  deep  autumnal  tone 
Sweet,  though  in  sadness.    Be  thou,  Spirit  fierce, 

My  spirit  I  be  thou  me,  impetuous  one  I 

In  the  lyrical  pieces  already  mentioned,  together  with 
Adonais,  the  lines  Written  in  the  Euganean  Hills,  Epipsy- 
chidion,  Stanzas  Written  in  Dejection  near  Naples,  A  Dream 
of  the  Unknown,  and  many  others,  Shelley's  lyrical  genius 
reaches  a  rarer  loveliness  and  a  more  faultless  art  than 
Byron's  ever  attained,  though  it  lacks  the  directness  and  mo- 
mentum of  Byron. 

In  Shelley's  longer  poems,  intoxicated  with  the  music  of 
his  own  singing,  he  abandons  himself  wholly  to  the  guidance 
of  his  imagination,  and  the  verse  seems  to  go  on  of  itself, 
like  the  enchanted  boat  in  Alastor,  with  no  one  at  the  helm. 
Vision  succeeds  vision  in  glorious  but  bewildering  profusion; 
ideal  landscapes  and  cities  of  cloud  "  pinnacled  dim  in  the 
intense  inane."  These  poems  are  like  the  water-falls  in  the 
Yosemite,  which,  tumbling  from  a  height  of  several  thousand 
feet,  are  shattered  into  foam  by  the  air,  and  waved  about 
over  the  valley.  Very  beautiful  is  this  descending  spray, 
and  the  rainbow  dwells  in  its  bosom;  but  there  is  no  longer 
any  stream,  nothing  but  an  iridescent  mist.  The  word 
ethereal  best  expresses  the  quality  of  Shelley's  genius.  His 
poetry  is  full  of  atmospheric  effects;  of  the  tricks  which 
light  plays  with  the  fluid  elements  of  water  and  air;  of  stars, 


Feom  French  Revolution  to  Death  of  Scott.    193 

clouds,  rain,  dew,  mist,  frost,  wind,  the  foam  of  seas,  the 
phases  of  the  moon,  the  green  shadows  of  waves,  the  shapes 
of  flames,  the  "  golden  lightning  of  the  setting  sun."  Nat- 
ure, in  Shelley,  wants  homeliness  and  relief.  While  poets 
like  Wordsworth  and  Burns  let  in  an  ideal  light  upon  the 
rough  fields  of  earth,  Shelley  escapes  into  a  "moonlight- 
colored"  realm  of  shadows  and  dreams,  among  whose  ab- 
stractions the  heart  turns  cold.  One  bit  of  Wordsworth's 
mountain  turf  is  worth  them  all. 

By  the  death  of  John  Keats  (1Y96-1821),  whose  elegy  Shel- 
ley sang  in  Adonais,  English  poetry  suffered  an  irreparable 
loss.  His  JEhdymion,  1818,  though  disfigured  by  mawkish- 
ness  and  by  some  affectations  of  manner,  was  rich  in  promise. 
Its  faults  were  those  of  youth,  the  faults  of  exuberance  and 
of  a  sensibility,  which  time  corrects.  Hyperion^  1820,  prom- 
ised to  be  his  masterpiece,  but  he  left  it  unfinished — "a 
Titanic  torso  " — because,  as  he  said,  "  there  were  too  many 
Miltonic  inversions  in  it."  The  subject  was  the  displacement 
by  Phoebus  Apollo  of  the  ancient  sun-god,  Hyperion,  the  last 
of  the  Titans  who  retained  his  dominion.  It  was  a  theme 
of  great  capabilities,  and  the  poem  was  begun  by  Keats 
with  a  strength  of  conception  which  leads  to  the  belief  that 
here  was  once  more  a  really  epic  genius,  had  fate  suffered  it 
to  mature.  The  fragment,  as  it  stands — "that  inlet  to 
severe  magnificence  " — proves  how  rapidly  Keats's  diction 
was  clarifying.  He  had  learned  to  string  up  his  loose 
chords.  There  is  nothing  maudlin  in  Hyperion  ;  all  there  is 
in  whole  tones  and  in  the  grand  manner,  "as  sublime  as 
^schylus,"  said  Byron,  with  the  grave,  antique  simplicity, 
and  something  of  modern  sweetness  interfused. 

Keats's  father  was  a  groom  in  a  London  livery-stable.  The 
poet  was  apprenticed  at  fifteen  to  a  surgeon.  At  school  he 
had  studied  Latin  but  not  Greek.  He,  who  of  all  the  English 
poets  had  the  most  purely  Hellenic  spirit,  made  acquaintance 
with  Greek  literature  and  art  only  through  the  medium  of 


194  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

classical  dictionaries,  translations,  and  popular  mythologies  ; 
and  later  through  the  marbles  and  casts  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum. His  friend,  the  artist  Haydon,  lent  him  a  copy  of 
Chapman's  Homer,  and  the  impression  that  it  made  upon  him 
he  recorded  in  his  sonnet,  On  First  Looking  into  Chapman's 
Homer.  Other  poems  of  the  same  inspiration  are  his  three 
sonnets,  To  Homer,  On  Seehig  the  Elgin  Marbles,  On  a  Pict- 
ure of  Leander,  Lamia,  and  the  beautiful  Ode  on  a  Grecian 
Urn.  But  Keats's  art  was  retrospective  and  eclectic,  the 
blossom  of  a  double  root ;  and  "  golden-tongued  Romance 
with  serene  lute  "  had  her  part  in  him,  as  well  as  the  classics. 
In  his  seventeenth  year  he  had  read  the  Faerie  Queene,  and 
from  Spenser  he  went  on  to  a  study  of  Chaucer,  Shakspere 
and  Milton.  Then  he  took  up  Italian  and  read  Ariosto.  The 
influence  of  these  studies  is  seen  in  his  poem,  Isabella,  or  the 
Pot  of  Basil,  taken  from  a  story  of  Boccaccio  ;  in  his  wild 
ballad,  La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci;  and  in  his  love  tale,  the 
Fve  of  St.  Agnes,  with  its  wealth  of  mediaeval  adornment. 
In  the  Ode  to  Autumn,  and  Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  the  Hel- 
lenic choiceness  is  found  touched  with  the  warmer  hues  of 
romance. 

There  is  something  deeply  tragic  in  the  short  story  of 
Keats's  life.  The  seeds  of  consumption  were  in  him;  he  felt 
the  stirrings  of  a  potent  genius,  but  he  knew  that  he  could 
not  wait  for  it  to  unfold,  but  must  die 

Before  high-piled  books  in  charactry 

Hold  like  rich  gamers  the  full-ripened  grain. 

His  disease  was  aggravated,  possibly,  by  the  stupid  brutality 
with  which  the  reviewers  had  treated  Endymion;  and  cer- 
tainly by  the  hopeless  love  which  devoured  him.  "The 
very  thing  which  I  want  to  live  most  for,"  he  wrote,  "will 
be  a  great  occasion  of  my  death.  If  I  had  any  chance  of  re- 
covery, this  passion  would  kill  me."  In  the  autumn  of  1820, 
his  disease  gaining  apace,  he  went  on  a  sailing  vessel  to  Italy, 


Fbom  Feench  Reyolutiox  to  Death  of  Scott.    195 

accompanied  by  a  single  friend,  a  young  artist  named  Severn. 
The  change  was  of  no  avail,  and  he  died  at  Rome  a  few 
weeks  after,  in  his  twenty-sixth  year. 

Keats  was,  above  all  things,  the  artist,  with  that  love  of 
the  beautiful  and  that  instinct  for  its  reproduction  which  are 
the  artist's  divinest  gifts.  He  cared  little  about  the  politics 
and  philosophy  of  his  day,  and  he  did  not  make  his  poetry 
the  vehicle  of  ideas.  It  was  sensuous  poetry,  the  poetry  of 
youth  and  gladness.  But  if  he  had  lived,  and  if,  with  wider 
knowledge  of  men  and  deeper  experience  of  life,  he  had  at- 
tained to  Wordsworth's  spiritual  insight  and  to  Byron's 
power  of  passion  and  understanding,  he  would  have  become 
a  greater  poet  than  either.  For  he  had  a  style — a  "natural 
magic  " — which  only  needed  the  chastening  touch  of  a  finer 
culture  to  make  it  superior  to  any  thing  in  modern  English 
poetry,  and  to  force  us  back  to  Milton  or  Shakspere  for  a 
comparison.  His  tombstone,  not  far  from  Shelley's,  bears  the 
inscription  of  his  own  choosing  :  "  Here  lies  one  whose  name 
was  writ  in  water."  But  it  would  be  within  the  limits  of 
truth  to  say  that  it  is  written  in  large  characters  on  most  of 
our  contemporary  poetry.  "  Wordsworth,"  says  Lowell, 
"  has  influenced  most  the  ideas  of  succeeding  poets ;  Keats 
their  forms."  And  he  has  influenced  these  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  the  amount  which  he  left,  or  to  his  intellectual 
range,  by  virtue  of  the  exquisite  quality  of  his  technique. 


1.  Mrs,  Oliphant's  Literary  History  of  England,  18th-19th 
Centuries.     London:  Macmillan  &  Co.,  1883. 

2.  Wordsworth's  Poems.     Chosen  and  edited  by  Matthew 
Arnold.     London,  1879. 

3.  Poetry  of  Byron.      Chosen  and  arranged  by  Matthew 
Arnold.     London,  1881. 

4.  Shelley.     Julian  and  Maddalo,  Prometheus  Unbound, 
The  Cenci,  Lyrical  Pieces. 


196  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

5.  Landor.     Pericles  and  Aspasia. 

6.  Coleridge.  Table-Talk,  Notes  on  Shakspere,  The  An- 
cient Mariner,  Christabel,  Love,  Ode  to  France,  Ode  to  the 
Departing  Year,  Kubla  Khan,  Hymn  before  Sunrise  in  the 
Vale  of  Chamouni,  Youth  and  Age,  Frost  at  Midnight. 

7.  De  Quincey.  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium  Eater, 
Flight  of  a  Tartar  Tribe,  Biographical  Sketches. 

8.  Scott.  Waverley,  Heart  of  Midlothian,  Bride  of  Lam- 
mermoor,  Rob  Roy,  Antiquary,  Marmion,  Lady  of  the 
Lake. 

9.  Keats.  Hyperion,  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  Lyrical  Pieces. 
Boston:  J.  R.  Osgood,  1871. 


Fbox  Death  of  Scott  to  thb  Pbesbnt  Timb.     197 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FROM  THE  DEATH  OF  SCOTT  TO  THE  PRESENT  TIMR 
1832-1893. 

The  literature  of  the  past  fifty  years  is  too  close  to  our 
eyes  to  enable  the  critic  to  pronounce  a  final  judgment,  or 
the  literary  historian  to  get  a  true  perspective.  Many  of  the 
principal  writers  of  the  time  are  still  living,  and  many  others 
have  been  dead  but  a  few  years.  This  concluding  chapter, 
therefore,  will  be  devoted  to  the  consideration  of  the  few 
who  stand  forth,  incontestably,  as  the  leaders  of  literary 
thought,  and  who  seem  likely,  under  all  future  changes  of 
fashion  and  taste,  to  remain  representatives  of  their  genera- 
tion. As  regards /brwr,  the  most  striking  fact  in  the  history 
of  the  period  under  review  is  the  immense  preponderance 
in  its  imaginative  literature  of  prose  fiction,  of  the  novel  of 
real  life.  The  novel  has  become  to  the  solitary  reader  of 
to-day  what  the  stage  play  was  to  the  audiences  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  or  the  periodical  essay,  like  the  Tatler  and 
Spectator,  to  the  clubs  and  breakfast-tables  of  Queen  Anne's. 
And  if  its  criticism  of  life  is  less  concentrated  and  brilliant 
than  the  drama  gives,  it  is  far  more  searching  and  minute. 
No  period  has  ever  left  in  its  literary  records  so  complete  a 
picture  of  its  whole  society  as  the  period  which  is  just  clos- 
ing. At  any  other  time  than  the  present,  the  names  of  au- 
thors like  Charlotte  Bronte,  Charles  Kingsley,  and  Charles 
Reade — names  which  are  here  merely  mentioned  in  passing 
— besides  many  others  which  want  of  space  forbids  us  even 
to  mention — would  be  of  capital  importance.  As  it  is,  we 
must  limit  our  review  to  the  three  acknowledged  masters 
of  modem  English   fiction,  Charles  Dickens   (1812-1870), 


198  Fkom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

■William  Makepeace  Thackeray   (1811-1863),  and  "George 
Eliot"  (Mary  Ann  Evans,  1819-1880). 

It  is  sometimes  helpful  to  reduce  a  great  writer  to  his  low- 
est term,  in  order  to  see  what  the  prevailing  bent  of  his 
genius  is.  This  lowest  term  may  often  be  found  in  his  early 
work,  before  experience  of  the  world  has  overlaid  his  origi- 
nal impulse  with  foreign  accretions.  Dickens  was  much  more 
than  a  humorist,  Thackeray  than  a  satirist,  and  George  Eliot 
than  a  moralist ;  but  they  had  their  starting-points  respect- 
ively in  humor,  in  burlesque,  and  in  strong  ethical  and  relig- 
ious feeling.  Dickens  began  with  a  broadly  comic  series  of 
papers,  contributed  to  the  Old  Magazine  and  the  Evening 
Chronicle,  and  reprinted  in  book  form,  in  1836,  as  Sketches 
hy  Boz.  The  success  of  these  suggested  to  a  firm  of  pub- 
lishers the  preparation  of  a  number  of  similar  sketches  of 
the  misadventures  of  cockney  sportsmen,  to  accompany 
plates  by  the  comic  draughtsman,  Mr.  R.  Seymour.  This 
suggestion  resulted  in  the  Pickwick  Papers,  published  in 
monthly  installments  in  1836-1837.  The  series  grew,  under 
Dickens's  hand,  into  a  continuous  though  rather  loosely  strung 
narrative  of  the  doings  of  a  set  of  characters,  conceived  with 
such  exuberant  and  novel  humor  that  it  took  the  public  by 
storm  and  raised  its  author  at  once  to  fame.  Pickwick  is  by  • 
no  means  Dickens's  best,  but  it  is  his  most  characteristic 
and  most  popular  book.  At  the  time  that  he  wrote  these 
early  sketches  he  was  a  reporter  for  the  Morning  Chronicle. 
His  naturally  acute  powers  of  observation  had  been  trained 
in  this  pursuit  to  the  utmost  efficiency,  and  there  always  con- 
tinued to  be  about  his  descriptive  writing  a  reportorial  and 
newspaper  air.  He  had  the  eye  for  effect,  the  sharp  fidelity 
to  detail,  the  instinct  for  rapidly  seizing  upon  and  exaggerat- 
ing the  salient  point,  which  are  developed  by  the  require- 
ments of  modern  journalism.  Dickens  knew  London  as  no 
one  else  has  ever  known  it,  and,  in  particular,  he  knew  its 
hideous  and  grotesque  recesses,  with  the   strange  develop- 


Feom  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Present  Time.      199 

mentsof  human  nature  that  abide  there;  slums  like  Tom-all- 
Alone's,  in  Bleak  House;  tlie  river-side  haunts  of  Rogue 
Riderhood,  in  Our  Mutual  Friend;  as  well  as  the  old  inns, 
like  the  "White  Hart,"  and  the  "  dusky  purlieus  of  the  law." 
As  a  man,  his  favorite  occupation  was  walking  the  streets, 
where,  as  a  child,  he  had  picked  up  the  most  valuable  part 
of  his  education.  His  tramps  about  London — often  after 
nightfall — sometimes  extended  to  fifteen  miles  in  a  day.  He 
knew,  too,  the  shifts  of  poverty.  His  father — some  traits  of 
whom  are  preserved  in  IMx*.  Micawber — was  imprisoned  for 
debt  in  the  Marshalsea  prison,  where  his  wife  took  lodging 
with  him,  while  Charles,  then  a  boy  of  ten,  was  employed  at 
six  shillings  a  week  to  cover  blacking-pots  in  Warner's 
blacking  warehouse.  The  hardships  and  loneliness  of  this 
part  of  hi^  life  are  told  under  a  thin  disguise  in  Dickens's 
masterpiece,  David  Gopperfield^  the  most  autobiographical  of 
his  novels.  From  these  young  experiences  he  gained  that 
insight  into  the  lives  of  the  lower  classes  and  that  sympathy 
with  children  and  with  the  poor  which  shine  out  in  kis  pa- 
thetic sketches  of  Little  Nell,  in  The  Old  Curiosity  Shop  ;  of 
Paul  Dombey ;  of  poor  Jo,  in  Bleak  House ;  of  "  the  Mar- 
chioness," and  a  hundred  other  figures. 

In  Oliver  Ticist^  contributed,  during  1837-1838,  to  Bent- 
ley's  Miscellany,  a  monthly  magazine  of  which  Dickens  was 
editor,  he  produced  his  first  regular  novel.  In  this  story  of 
the  criminal  classes  the  author  showed  a  tragic  power  which 
he  had  not  hitherto  exhibited.  Thenceforward  his  career 
was  a  series  of  dazzling  successes.  It  is  impossible  here  to 
particularize  his  numerous  novels,  sketches,  short  tales,  and 
"  Christmas  Stories  " — the  latter  a  fashion  which  he  inaug- 
urated, and  which  has  produced  a  whole  literature  in  itself. 
In  Nicholas  Nicklehy,  1839  ;  Master  Humphrey's  Clock, 
1840;  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  1844;  Dombey  and  Son,  1848; 
David  Copperfield,  1850,  and  Bleak  House,  1853,  there  is 
no  falling  oflE  in   strength.     The    last   named  was,  in    some 


200  From  Chaucee  to  Tennyson. 

respects,  and  especially  in  the  skillful  construction  of  the 
plot,  his  best  novel.  In  some  of  his  latest  books,  as  Great 
Expectations,  1861,  and  Our  Mutual  Friend,  1865,  there  are 
signs  of  a  decline.  This  showed  itself  in  an  unnatural  exag- 
geration of  characters  and  motives,  and  a  painful  straining 
after  humorous  effects ;  faults,  indeed,  from  which  Dickens 
was  never  wholly  free.  There  was  a  histrionic  side  to  him, 
which  came  out  in  his  fondness  for  private  theatricals,  in 
which  he  exhibited  remarkable  talent,  and  in  the  dramatic 
action  which  he  introduced  into  the  delightful  public  read- 
ings from  his  works  that  he  gave  before  vast  audiences  all 
over  the  United  Kingdom,  and  in  his  two  visits  to  America. 
It  is  not  surprising,  either,  to  learn  that  upon  the  stage  his 
preference  was  for  melodrama  and  farce.  His  own  serious 
writing  was  always  dangerously  close  to  the  melodramatic, 
and  his  humor  to  the  farcical.  There  is  much  false  art,  bad 
taste,  and  even  vulgarity  in  Dickens.  He  was  never  quite  a 
gentleman,  and  never  succeeded  well  in  drawing  gentlemen 
or  ladles.  In  the  region  of  low  comedy  he  is  easily  the 
most  original,  the  most  inexhaustible,  the  most  wonderful,  of 
modern  humorists.  Creations  such  as  Mrs.  Nickleby,  Mr. 
Micawber,  Sam  Weller,  Sairy  Gamp,  take  rank  with  Falstaff 
and  Dogberry ;  while  many  others,  like  Dick  Swiveller, 
Stiggins,  Chadband,  Mrs.  Jellyby,  and  Julia  Mills,  are 
almost  equally  good.  In  the  innumerable  swarm  of  minor 
characters  with  which  he  has  enriched  our  comic  literature 
there  is  no  indistinctness.  Indeed,  the  objection  that  has 
been  made  to  him  is  that  his  characters  are  too  distinct — that 
he  puts  labels  on  them  ;  that  they  are  often  mere  personifica- 
tions of  a  single  trick  of  speech  or  manner,  which  becomes 
tedious  and  unnatural  by  repetition.  Thus,  Grandfather 
Small  weed  is  always  settling  down  into  his  cushion,  and 
having  to  be  shaken  up  ;  Mr.  Jellyby  is  always  sitting  with 
his  head  against  the  wall ;  Peggotty  is  always  bursting  her 
buttons  off,  etc.     As  Dickens's  humorous  characters  tend 


From  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Present  Time.      201 

perpetually  to  run  into  caricatures  and  grotesques,  so  his 
sentiment,  from  the  same  excess,  slops  over  too  frequently 
into  "  gush,"  and  into  a  too  deliberate  and  protracted  at- 
tack upon  the  pity.  A  favorite  humorous  device  in  his  style 
is  a  stately  and  roundabout  way  of  telling  a  trivial  incident, 
as  where,  for  example,  Mr.  Roker  "muttered  certain  un- 
pleasant invocations  concerning  his  own  eyes,  limbs,  and  cir- 
culating fluids  ; "  or  where  the  drunken  man  who  is  singing 
comic  songs  in  the  Fleet  received  from  Mr.  Smangle  "  a 
gentle  intimation,  through  the  medium  of  the  water-jug, 
that  his  audience  were  not  musically  disposed."  This  man- 
ner was  original  with  Dickens,  though  he  may  have  taken  a 
hint  of  it  from  the  mock  heroic  language  of  Jonathan  Wild; 
but  as  practiced  by  a  thousand  imitators,  ever  since,  it  has 
gradually  become  a  burden. 

It  would  not  be  the  whole  truth  to  say  that  the  difference 
between  the  humor  of  Thackeray  and  Dickens  is  the  same  as 
between  that  of  Shakspere  and  Ben  Jonson.  Yet  it  is  true 
that  the  "  humors  "  of  Ben  Jonson  have  an  analogy  with  the 
extremer  instances  of  Dickens's  character  sketches  in  this 
respect,  namely,  that  they  are  both  studies  of  the  eccentric, 
the  abnormal,  the  whimsical,  rather  than  of  the  typical  and 
universal;  studies  of  manners,  rather  than  of  whole  charac- 
ters. And  it  is  easily  conceivable  that,  at  no  distant  day,  the 
oddities  of  Captain  Cuttle,  Deportment  Turveydrop,  Mark 
Tapley,  and  Newman  Noggs  will  seem  as  far-fetched  and 
impossible  as  those  of  Captain  Otter,  Fastidious  Brisk  and 
Sir  Amorous  La-Foole, 

When  Dickens  was  looking  about  for  some  one  to  take 
Seymour's  place  as  illustrator  of  Pickwick,  Thackeray  ap- 
plied for  the  job,  but  without  success.  He  was  then  a 
young  man  of  twenty-five,  and  still  hesitating  between  art 
and  literature.  He  had  begun  to  draw  caricatures  with  his 
pencil  when  a  school-boy  at  the  Charter  House,  and  to 
scribble  them  with  his  pen  when  a  student  at  Cambridge, 


202  From  Ghaucer  to  Tennyson. 

editing  The  Snob,  a  Aveekly  xinder-graduate  paper,  and 
parodying  the  prize  poem  Timbuctoo  of  his  contemporary  at 
the  university,  Alfred  Tennyson.  Then  he  went  abroad 
to  study  art,  passing  a  season  at  Weimar,  where  he  met 
Goethe  and  filled  the  albums  of  the  young  Saxon  ladies  with 
caricatures ;  afterward  living  a  bohemian  existence  in  the 
Latin  quarter  at  Paris,  studying  art  in  a  desultory  way, 
and  seeing  men  and  cities  ;  accumulating  portfolios  full 
of  sketches,  but  laying  up  stores  of  material  to  be  used 
afterward  to  greater  advantage  when  he  should  settle  upon 
his  true  medium  of  expression.  By  1837,  having  lost  his 
fortune  of  five  hundred  pounds  a  year  in  speculation  and 
gambling,  he  began  to  contribute  to  Fraser's,  and  thereafter 
to  the  Neio  Monthly,  Cruikshank's  Comic  Almanac,  Punch, 
and  other  periodicals,  clever  burlesques,  art  criticisms  by 
"Michael  Angelo  Titmarsh,"  Yellowplmh  Papers,  and  all 
manner  of  skits,  satirical  character  sketches,  and  humorous 
tales,  like  the  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond  and  the  Lxick  of 
Barry  Lyndon.  Some  of  these  were  collected  in  the  Paris 
Sketch-Book,  1840,  and  the  Irish  Sketch- Book,  1843  ;  but 
Thackeray  was  slow  in  winning  recognition,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  publication  of  his  first  great  novel.  Vanity  Fair, 
in  monthly  parts,  during  1846-1848,  that  he  achieved  any 
thing  like  the  general  reputation  that  Dickens  had  reached 
at  a  bound.  Vanity  Fair  described  itself,  on  its  title-page, 
as  "  a  novel  without  a  hero."  It  was  also  a  novel  without  a 
plot — in  the  sense  in  which  Bleak  House  or  Nicholas  Nickle- 
by  had  a  plot — and  in  that  respect  it  set  the  fashion  for  the 
latest  school  of  realistic  fiction,  being  a  transcript  of  life, 
without  necessary  beginning  or  end.  Indeed,  one  of  the 
pleasantest  things  to  a  reader  of  Thackeray  is  the  way  which 
his  characters  have  of  re-appearing,  as  old  acquaintances,  in 
his  different  books ;  just  as,  in  real  life,  people  drop  out  of 
mind  and  then  turn  up  again  in  other  years  and  places. 
Vanity  Fair  is  Thackeray's  masterpiece,  but   it  is  not  the 


From:  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Present  Time.      203 

best  introduction  to  his  writings.  There  are  no  illusions  in 
it,  and,  to  a  young  reader  fresh  from  Scott's  romances  or 
Dickens's  sympathetic  extravagances,  it  will  seem  hard  and 
repellent.  But  men  who,  like  Thackeray,  have  seen  life  and 
tasted  its  bitterness  and  felt  its  hollowness  know  how  to 
prize  it.  Thackeray  does  not  merely  expose  the  cant,  the 
emptiness,  the  self-seeking,  the  false  pretenses,  flunkeyism, 
and  snobbery — the  "  mean  admiration  of  mean  things  " — in 
the  great  world  of  London  society  ;  his  keen,  unsparing 
vision  detects  the  base  alloy  in  the  purest  natures.  There 
are  no  "  heroes  "  in  his  books,  no  perfect  characters.  Even 
his  good  women,  such  as  Helen  and  Laura  Pendennis,  are 
capable  of  cruel  injustice  toward  less  fortunate  sisters,  like 
little  Fanny  ;  and  Amelia  Sedley  is  led,  by  blind  feminine  in- 
stinct, to  snub  and  tyrannize  over  poor  Dobbin.  The  shabby 
miseries  of  life,  the  numbing  and  belittling  influences  of  fail- 
ure and  poverty  on  the  most  generous  natures,  are  the  tragic 
themes  which  Thackeray  handles  by  preference.  He  has 
been  called  a  cynic,  but  the  boyish  playfulness  of  his  humor 
and  his  kindly  spirit  are  incompatible  with  cynicism.  Char- 
lotte Bronte  said  that  Fielding  was  the  vulture  and  Thack- 
eray the  eagle.  The  comparison  would  have  been  truer  if 
made  between  Swift  and  Thackeray.  Swift  was  a  cynic  ;  his 
pen  was  driven  by  hate,  but  Thackeray's  by  love,  and  it  was 
not  in  bitterness  but  in  sadness  that  the  latter  laid  bare 
the  wickedness  of  the  world.  He  was  himself  a  thorough 
man  of  the  world,  and  he  had  that  dislike  for  a  display  of 
feeling  which  characterizes  the  modern  Englishman.  But 
behind  his  satiric  mask  he  concealed  the  manliest  tenderness, 
and  a  reverence  for  every  thing  in  human  nature  that  is  good 
and  true.  Thackeray's  other  great  novels  are  Pendennis,  1849; 
Henry  Esmond,  1852,  and  The  Newconxes,  1855 — the  last 
of  which  contains  his  most  lovable  character,  the  pathetic 
and  immortal  figure  of  Colonel  Newcome,  a  creation  worthy 
to  stand,  in  its  dignity  and  its  sublime  weakness,  by  the  side 


204  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

of  Don  Quixote.  It  was  alleged  against  Thackeray  that  he 
made  all  his  good  characters,  like  Major  Dobbin  and  Amelia 
Sedley  and  Colonel  Newcome,  intellectually  feeble,  and  his 
brilliant  characters,  like  Becky  Sharp  and  Lord  Steyne  and 
Blanche  Amory,  morally  bad.  This  is  not  entirely  true, 
but  the  other  complaint — that  his  women  are  inferior  to  his 
men — is  true  in  a  general  way.  Somewhat  inferior  to  his 
other  novels  were  TheYirginians,  1858,  and  The  Adventures 
of  Philip,  1862.  All  of  these  were  stories  of  contemporary 
life,  except  Henry  Esmond  and  its  sequel.  The  Vir- 
ginians, which,  though  not  precisely  historical  fictions, 
introduced  historical  figures,  such  as  Washington  and 
the  Earl  of  Peterborough,  Their  period  of  action  was 
the  18th  century,  and  the  dialogue  was  a  cunning  imitation  of 
the  language  of  that  time.  Thackeray  was  strongly  at- 
tracted by  the  18th  century.  His  literary  teachers  were 
Addison,  Swift,  Steele,  Gay,  Johnson,  Richardson,  Gold- 
smith, Fielding,  Smollett,  and  Sterne,  and  his  special  master 
and  model  was  Fielding.  He  projected  a  history  of  the 
century,  and  his  studies  in  this  kind  took  shape  in  his  two 
charming  series  of  lectures  on  The  English  Humorists  and 
The  Four  Georges.  These  he  delivered  in  England  and  in 
America,  to  which  country  he,  like  Dickens,  made  two 
several  visits. 

Thackeray's  genius  was,  perhaps,  less  astonishing  than 
Dickens's;  less  fertile,  spontaneous,  and  inventive ;  but  his 
art  is  sounder,  and  his  delineation  of  character  more  truthful. 
After  one  has  formed  a  taste  for  his  books,  Dickens's  senti- 
ment will  seem  overdone,  and  much  of  his  humor  will  have 
the  air  of  buffoonery.  Thackeray  had  the  advantage  in 
another  particular  :  he  described  the  life  of  the  upper  classes, 
and  Dickens  of  the  lower.  It  may  be  true  that  the  latter 
offers  richer  material  to  the  novelist,  in  the  play  of  element- 
ary passions  and  in  strong  native  developments  of  charactei*. 
It  is  true,  also,  that  Thackeray  approached  "  society  "  rather 


From  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Pbesent  Time.      205 

to  satirize  it  than  to  set  forth  its  agreeableness.  Yet,  after 
all,  it  is  "  the  great  world  "  which  he  describes,  that  world 
upon  which  the  broadening  and  refining  processes  of  a  high 
civilization  have  done  their  utmost,  and  which,  consequently, 
must  possess  an  intellectual  interest  superior  to  any  thing  in 
the  life  of  London  thieves,  traveling  showmen,  and  coachees. 
Thackeray  is  the  equal  of  Swift  as  a  satirist,  of  Dickens  as  a 
humorist,  and  of  Scott  as  a  novelist.  The  one  element  lack- 
ing in  him — and  which  Scott  had  in  a  high  degree — is  the 
poetic  imagination.  "  I  have  no  brains  above  my  eyes "  he 
said  ;  "  I  describe  what  I  see."  Hence  there  is  wanting  in  his 
creations  that  final  charm  which  Shakspere's  have.  For 
what  the  eyes  see  is  not  all. 

The  great  woman  who  Wrote  under  the  pen-name  of  George 
Eliot  was  a  humorist,  too.  She  had  a  rich,  deep  humor  of 
her  own,  and  a  wit  that  crystallized  into  sajangs  which  are 
not  epigrams  only  because  their  wisdom  strikes  more  than 
their  smartness.  But  humor  was  not,  as  with  Thackeray 
and  Dickens,  her  point  of  view.  A  country  girl,  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  land  agent  and  surveyor  at  Nuneaton,  in  Warwick- 
shire, her  early  letters  and  journals  exhibit  a  Calvinistic 
gravity  and  moral  severity.  Later,  when  her  truth  to  her 
convictions  led  her  to  renounce  the  Christian  belief,  she 
carried  into  positivism  the  same  religious  earnestness,  and 
wrote  the  one  English  hymn  of  the  religion  of  humanity: 

0,  let  me  join  the  choir  invisible,  etc. 

Her  first  published  work  was  a  translation  of  Strauss's 
Leben  Jesu,  1846.  In  1851  she  went  to  London  and  became 
one  of  the  editors  of  the  Radical  organ,  the  Westminster 
Hevieio.  Here  she  formed  a  connection — a  man*iage  in  all 
but  the  name — with  George  Henry  Lewes,  yfho  was,  like  her- 
self, a  freethinker,  and  who  published,  among  other  things, 
a  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy.  Lewes  had  also 
written  fiction,  and  it  was  at  his  suggestion   that  his  wife 


206  Fkom  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

undertook  story  writing.  Her  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  were 
contributed  to  Blackwood's  Magazine  for  1857,  and  published 
in  book  form  in  the  following  year.  Adam  Bede  followed 
in  1859,  the  million  the  Floss \n  1860,  Silas  Marner  in  1861, 
Momola  in  1863,  Felix  Holt  in  1866,  and  Middlemarch  in  1872. 
All  of  these,  except  Momola,  are  tales  of  provincial  and 
largely  of  domestic  life  in  the  midland  counties.  Mom^ola  is 
an  historical  novel,  the  scene  of  which  is  Florence  in  the  15th 
century ;  the  Florence  of  Macchiavelli  and  of  Savonarola. 

George  Eliot's  method  was  very  different  from  that  of 
Thackeray  or  Dickens.  She  did  not  crowd  her  canvas  with 
the  swarming  life  of  cities.  Her  figures  are  comparatively 
few,  and  they  are  selected  from  the  middle-class  families  of 
rural  parishes  or  small  towns,  amid  that  atmosphere  of  "  fine 
old  leisure ; "  whose  disappearance  she  lamented.  Her  drama 
is  a  still-life  drama,  intensely  and  profoundly  inward.  Char- 
acter is  the  stuff  that  she  works  in,  and  she  deals  with  it  more 
subtly  than  Thackeray.  With  him  the  tragedy  is  produced 
by  the  pressure  of  society  and  its  false  standards  upon  the 
individual;  with  her,  by  the  malign  influence  of  individuals 
upon  one  another.  She  watches  "  the  stealthy  convergence 
of  human  fates,"  the  intersection  at  various  angles  of  the 
planes  of  character,  the  power  that  the  lower  nature  has  to 
thwart,  stupefy,  or  corrupt  the  higher,  which  has  become 
entangled  with  it  in  the  mesh  of  destiny.  At  the  bottom  of 
every  one  of  her  stories  there  is  a  problem  of  the  conscience 
or  the  intellect.  In  this  respect  she  resembles  Hawthorne, 
though  she  is  not,  like  him,  a  romancer,  but  a  realist. 

There  is  a  melancholy  philosophy  in  her  books,  most  of 
which  are  tales  of  failure  or  frustration.  The  Mill  on  the 
Floss  contains  a  large  element  of  autobiography,  and  its  hero- 
ine, Maggie  Tulliver,  is,  perhaps,  her  idealized  self.  Her 
aspirations  after  a  fuller  and  nobler  existence  are  condemned 
to  struggle  against  the  resistance  of  a  narrow,  provincial 
environment,  and  the  pressure  of  untoward  fates.     She  is 


From  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Present  Time.      207 

tempted  to  seek  an  escape  even  through  a  desperate  throw- 
ing off  of  moral  obligations,  and  is  driven  back  to  her  duty 
only  to  die  by  a  sudden  stroke  of  destiny.  "Life  is  a  bad 
business,"  wrote  George  Eliot,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  "and 
we  must  make  the  most  of  it."  Adam  JBede  is,  in  construc- 
tion, the  most  perfect  of  her  novels,  and  Silas  Mamer  of  her 
shorter  stories.  Her  analytic  habit  gained  more  and  more 
upon  her  as  she  wrote.  Middlemarc\  in  some  respects  her 
greatest  book,  lacks  the  unity  of  her  earlier  novels,  and  the 
story  tends  to  become  subordinate  to  the  working  out  of 
character  studies  and  social  problems.  The  philosophic 
speculations  which  she  shared  with  her  husband  were  seem 
ingly  unfavorable  to  her  artistic  growth,  a  circumstance 
which  becomes  apparent  in  her  last  novel,  Daniel  Deronda^ 
1877.  Finally  in  the  Impressions  of  Theophrasttis  Sicch,  1879, 
she  abandoned  narrative  altogether,  and  recurred  to  that 
type  of  "  character  "  books  which  we  have  met  as  a  flourish- 
ing department  of  literature  in  the  17th  century,  represented 
by  such  works  as  Earle's  Microcosmographie  and  Fuller's 
Holy  and  Profane  State.  The  moral  of  George  Eliot's  writ- 
ings is  not  obtruded.  She  never  made  the  artistic  mistake 
of  writing  a  novel  of  purpose,  or  what  the  Germans  call  a 
tendem-roman*  as  Dickens  did,  for  example,  when  he  at- 
tacked imprisonment  for  debt,  in  Pickwick^  the  poor  laws, 
in  Oliver  Ticist/  the  Court  of  Chancery,  in  Pleak  Souse; 
and  the  Circumlocution  office,  in  Little  Dorrit. 

Next  to  the  novel,  the  essay  has  been  the  most  overflowing 
literary  form  used  by  the  writers  of  this  generation — a  form 
characteristic,  it  may  be,  of  an  age  which  "lectures,  not 
creates."  It  is  not  the  essay  of  Bacon,  nor  yet  of  Addison, 
nor  of  Lamb,  but  attempts  a  complete  treatment.  Indeed, 
many  longish  books,  like  Carlyle's  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship 
and  Ruskin's  Modern  Painters,  are,  in  spirit,  rather  literary 
essays  than  formal  treatises.  The  most  popular  essayist  and 
historian   of    his   time   was  Thomas    Babington    Macaulay 


£08  From  Chaucer  to  Tenn^yson. 

(1800-1859),  an  active  and  versatile  man,  who  won  splendid 
success  in  many  fields  of  labor.  He  was  prominent  in  public 
life  as  one  of  the  leading  orators  and  writers  of  the  Whig 
party.  He  sat  many  times  in  the  House  of  Commons,  as 
member  for  Calne,  for  Leeds,  and  for  Edinburgh,  and  took  a 
distinguished  part  in  the  debates  on  the  Reform  bill  of  1832. 
He  held  office  in  several  Whig  governments,  and  during  his 
four  years'  service  in  British  India,as  member  of  the  Supreme 
Council  of  Calcutta,  he  did  valuable  work  in  promoting  edu- 
cation in  that  province,  and  in  codifying  the  Indian  penal 
law.  After  his  return  to  England,  and  esi^ecially  after  the 
publication  of  his  Sistory  of  England  from  The  Accession 
of  James  11.^  honors  and  appointments  of  all  kinds  were 
showered  upon  him.  In  1857  he  was  raised  to  the  peerage 
as  Baron  Macaulay  of  Rothley. 

Macaulay's  equipment,  as  a  writer  on  historical  and  bio- 
graphical subjects,  was,  in  some  points,  unique.  His  reading 
was  prodigious,  and  his  memory  so  tenacious  that  it  was  said, 
with  but  little  exaggeration,  that  he  never  forgot  any  thing 
that  he  had  read.  He  could  repeat  the  whole  of  Paradise 
Lost  by  heart,  and  thought  it  probable  that  he  could  rewrite 
Sir  Charles  Grandison  from  memory.  In  his  books,  in  his 
speeches  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  in  private  conversa- 
tion— for  he  was  an  eager  and  fluent  talker,  running  on  often 
for  hours  at  a  stretch — he  was  never  at  a  loss  to  fortify  and 
illustrate  his  positions  by  citation  after  citation  of  dates, 
names,  facts  of  all  kinds,  and  passages  quoted  verbatim  from 
his  multifarious  reading.  The  first  of  Macaulay's  writings 
to  attract  general  notice  was  his  article  on  Milton,  printed  in 
the  August  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Meview  for  1825.  The 
editor.  Lord  Jeffi'ey,  in  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  the 
manuscript,  wrote  to  his  new  contributor,  "  The  more  I 
think,  the  less  I  can  conceive  where  you  picked  up  that  style." 
That  celebrated  style — about  which  so  much  has  since  been 
written — was  an  index  to  the  mental  character  of  its  owner. 


Feom  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Present  Time.       209 

Macaulay  was  of  a  confident,  sanguine,  impetuous  nature. 
He  had  great  common  sense,  and  he  saw  what  he  saw  quickly 
and  clearly,  but  he  did  not  see  very  far  below  the  surface. 
He  wrote  with  the  conviction  of  an  advocate,  and  the  easy 
omniscience  of  a  man  whose  learning  is  really  nothing 
more  than  "general  information"  raised  to  a  very  high 
power,  rather  than  with  the  subtle  penetration  of  an  original 
or  truly  philosophic  intellect,  like  Coleridge's  or  De  Quincey's. 
He  always  had  at  hand  explanations  of  events  or  of  charac- 
ters which  were  admirably  easy  and  simple — too  simple, 
indeed,  for  the  complicated  phenomena  which  they  professed 
to  explain.  His  style  was  cleai-,  animated,  showy,  and  even 
its  faults  were  of  an  exciting  kind.  It  was  his  habit  to  give 
piquancy  to  his  writing  by  putting  things  concretely.  Thus, 
instead  of  saying,  in  general  terms — as  Hume  or  Gibbon 
might  have  done — that  the  Normans  and  Saxons  began  to 
mingle  about  1200,  he  says:  "The  great-grandsons  of  those 
who  had  fought  under  William  and  the  great  grandsons  of 
those  who  had  fought  under  Harold  began  to  draw  near  to 
each  other."  Macaulay  was  a  great  scene  painter,  who 
neglected  delicate  truths  of  detail  for  exaggerated  distemper 
effects.  He  used  the  rhetorical  machinery  of  climax  and 
hyperbole  for  all  that  it  was  worth,  and  he  "  made  points  " — 
as  in  his  essay  on  Bacon — by  creating  antithesis.  In  his  His- 
tory of  England  he  inaugurated  the  picturesque  method  of 
historical  writing.  The  book  was  as  fascinating  as  any 
novel.  Macaulay,  like  Scott,  had  the  historic  imagination, 
though  his  method  of  turning  history  into  romance  was  very 
different  from  Scott's.  Among  his  essays  the  best  are  those 
which,  like  the  ones  on  Lord  Clive,  Warren  Hastings^  and 
Frederick  the  Greaty  deal  with  historical  subjects;  or  those 
which  deal  with  literary  subjects  under  their  public  historic 
relations,  such  as  the  essays  on  Addison,  Bwiyan,  and  The 
Coinic  Dramatists  of  the  Restoration.  "  I  have  never  writ- 
ten a  page  of  criticism  on  poetry,  or  the  fine  arts,"  wrote 


210  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Macaulay, "  which  I  would  not  burn  if  I  had  the  power." 
Kevertheless  his  own  Lays  of  Ancient  Borne,  1842,  are  good, 
stirring  verse  of  the  emphatic  and  declamatory  kind,  though 
their  quality  may  be  rather  rhetorical  than  poetic. 

Our  critical  time  has  not  forborne  to  criticize  itself,  and 
perhaps  the  writer  who  impressed  himself  most  strongly  upon 
his  generation  was  the  one  who  railed  most  desperately 
against  the  "spirit  of  the  age."  Thomas  Carlyle  (1795- 
-1881)  was  occupied  between  1822  and  1830  chiefly  in  im- 
parting to  the  British  public  a  knowledge  of  German  litera- 
ture. He  published,  among  other  things,  a  Life  of  Schiller^ 
a  translation  of  Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meister,  and  two  volumes 
of  translations  from  the  German  romancers — Tieck,  Hoffmann, 
Richter,  and  Fouque — and  contributed  to  the  JEdinhurgh 
and  Foreign  Review  articles  on  Goethe,  Werner,  Novalis, 
Richter,  German  playwrights,  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  etc. 
His  own  diction  became  more  and  more  tinctured  with  Ger- 
manisms. There  was  something  Gothic  in  his  taste,  which 
was  attracted  by  the  lawless,  the  grotesque,  and  the  whim- 
sical in  the  writings  of  Jean  Paul  Richter.  His  favorite 
among  English  humorists  was  Sterne,  who  has  a  share  of  these 
same  qualities.  He  spoke  disparagingly  of  "  the  sensuous 
literature  of  the  Greeks,"  and  preferred  the  Norse  to  the 
Hellenic  mythology.  Even  in  his  admirable  critical  essays 
on  Burns,  on  Richter,  on  Scott,  Diderot,  and  Voltaire,  which 
are  free  from  his  later  mannerism — written  in  English,  and 
not  in  Carlylese — his  sense  of  spirit  is  always  more  lively 
than  his  sense  of  form.  He  finally  became  so  impatient  of 
art  as  to  maintain — half-seriously — the  paradox  that  Shaks- 
pere  would  have  done  better  to  write  in  prose.  In  three  of 
these  early  essays — on  the  Signs  of  the  Times,  1829  ;  on 
History,  1830,  and  on  Characteristics,  1831 — are  to  be  found 
the  germs  of  all  his  later  writings.  The  first  of  these  was 
an  arraignment  of  the  mechanical  spirit  of  the  age.  In 
every  province  of  thought  he  discovered  too  great  a  reliance 


Feom  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Peesent  Time.       211 

apon  systems,  institutions,  machinery,  instead  of  upon  men. 
Thus,  in  religion,  we  have  Bible  societies,  "machines  for 
converting  the  heathen."  "In  defect  of  Raphaels  and 
Angelos  and  Mozarts,  we  have  royal  academies  of  painting, 
sculpture,  music."  In  like  manner,  he  complains,  govern- 
ment is  a  macliine.  "  Its  duties  and  faults  are  not  those  of  a 
father,  but  of  an  active  parish-constable."  Against  the 
**  police  theory,"  as  distinguished  from  the  "  paternal "  the- 
ory, of  government,  Carlyle  protested  with  ever  shriller  itera- 
tion. In  Chartism,  1839,  Past  and  Present,  1843,  and  ia^^er- 
day  Pamphlets,  1850,  he  denounced  this  laissez  faire  idea. 
The  business  of  government,  he  repeated,  is  to  govern ;  but 
this  view  makes  it  its  business  to  refrain  from  governing. 
He  fought  most  fiercely  against  the  conclusions  of  political 
economy,  "  the  dismal  science  "  which,  he  said,  affirmed  that 
men  were  guided  exclusively  by  their  stomachs.  He  pro- 
tested, too,  against  the  Utilitarians,  followers  of  Bentham 
and  Mill,  with  their  "  greatest  happiness  principle,"  which 
reduced  virtue  to  a  profit-and-loss  account.  Carlyle  took 
issue  with  modern  liberalism  ;  he  ridiculed  the  self-gratula- 
tion  of  the  time,  all  the  talk  about  progress  of  the  species, 
unexampled  prosperity,  etc.  But  he  was  reactionary  with- 
out being  conservative.  He  had  studied  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  he  saw  the  fateful,  irresistible  approach  of  democ- 
racy. He  had  no  faith  in  government  "  by  counting  noses," 
and  he  hated  talking  Parliaments  ;  but  neither  did  he  put 
trust  in  an  aristocracy  that  spent  its  time  in  "  preserving  the 
game."  What  he  wanted  was  a  great  individual  ruler;  a 
real  king  or  hero  ;  and  this  doctrine  he  set  forth  afterward 
most  fully  in  Hero  Worshijy,  1841,  and  illustrated  in  his 
lives  of  representative  heroes,  such  as  his  CromweWs  Letters 
and  Speeches,  1845,  and  his  great  History  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  1858-1865.  Cromwell  and  Frederick  were  well 
enough ;  but  as  Carlyle  grew  older  his  admiration  for  mere 
force  grew,  and  his  latest  hero  was  none  other  than  that 


212  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson". 

infamous  Dr.  Francia,  the  South  American  dictator,  whose 
career  of  bloody  and  crafty  crime  horrified  the  civilized 
world. 

The  essay  on  History  was  a  protest  against  the  scientific 
view  of  history  which  attempts  to  explain  away  and  account 
for  the  wonderful.  "Wonder,"  he  wrote  in  Sartor  Resartus^ 
"  is  the  basis  of  all  worship."  He  defined  history  as  "  the 
essence  of  innumerable  biographies."  "Mr.  Carlyle,"  said 
the  Italian  patriot,  Mazzini,  "  comprehends  only  the  indi- 
vidual. The  nationality  of  Italy  is,  in  his  eyes,  the  glory  of 
having  produced  Dante  and  Christopher  Columbus."  This 
trait  comes  out  in  his  greatest  book.  The  French  Revolution^ 
1837,  which  is  a  mighty  tragedy  enacted  by  a  few  leading 
characters — Mirabeau,  Danton,  Napoleon.  He  loved  to  em- 
phasize the  superiority  of  history  over  fiction  as  dramatic 
material.  The  third  of  the  three  essays  mentioned  was  a 
Jeremiad  on  the  morbid  self-consciousness  of  the  age,  which 
shows  itself,  in  religion  and  philosophy,  as  skepticism  and  in- 
trospective metaphysics  ;  and  in  literature,  as  sentimentalisra, 
and  "  view-hunting." 

But  Carlyle's  epoch-making  book  was  Sartor  Resartus 
(The  Tailor  Re  tailored),  published  in  Fraser''s  Magazine  for 
1833-1834,  and  first  reprinted  in  book  form  in  America. 
This  was  a  satire  upon  shams,  conventions,  the .  disguises 
which  overlie  the  most  spiritual  realities  of  the  soul.  It 
purported  to  be  the  life  and  "  clothes-philosophy  "  of  a  cei*- 
tain  Diogenes  Teufelsdrockh,  Professor  der  Allerlei  Wis- 
senschaft — of  things  in  general — in  the  University  of 
Weissnichtwo.  "  Society,"  said  Carlyle,  "  is  founded  upon 
cloth,"  following  the  suggestions  of  Lear's  speech  to  the 
naked  bedlam  beggar :  "  Thou  art  the  thing  itself  :  unaccom- 
modated man  is  no  more  but  such  a  poor,  bare,  forked 
animal  as  thou  art ;"  and  borrowing  also,  perhaps,  an  iron- 
ical hint  from  a  paragraph  in  Swift's  Tale  of  a  Tub :  "  A  sect 
was  established  who  held  the  universe  to  be  a  large  suit  of 


From  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Pbesent  Time.       213 

clothes.  ...  If  certain  ermines  or  furs  be  placed  in  a  certain 
position,  we  style  them  a  judge  ;  and  so  an  apt  conjunction 
of  lawn  and  black  satin  we  entitle  a  bishop."  In  Sartor 
Mesartiis  Carlyle  let  himself  go.  It  was  willful,  uncouth, 
amorphous,  titanic.  There  was  something  monstrous  in  the 
combination — the  hot  heart  of  the  Scot  manned  to  the  tran- 
scendental dream  of  Germany.  It  was  not  English,  said  the 
reviewers  ;  it  was  not  sense  ;  it  was  disfigured  by  obscurity 
and  "mysticism."  Nevertheless  even  the  thin-witted  and 
the  drywitted  had  to  acknowledge  the  powerful  beauty  of 
many  chapters  and  passages,  rich  with  humor,  eloquence, 
poetry,  deep-hearted  tenderness,  or  passionate  scorn. 

Carlyle  was  a  voracious  reader,  and  the  plunder  of  whole 
literatures  is  strewn  over  his  pages.  He  flung  about  the  re- 
sources of  the  language  with  a  giant's  strength,  and  made 
new  words  at  every  turn.  The  concreteness  and  the  swarm- 
ing fertility  of  his  mind  are  evidenced  by  his  enormous  vo- 
cabulary, computed  greatly  to  exceed  Shakspere's,  or  any 
other  single  writer's  in  the  English  tongue.  His  style  lacks 
the  crowning  grace  of  simplicity  and  repose.  It  astonishes, 
but  it  also  fatigues. 

Carlyle's  influence  has  consisted  more  in  his  attitude  than 
in  any  special  truth  which  he  has  preached.  It  has  been  the 
influence  of  a  moralist,  of  a  practical  rather  than  a  sj^ecu- 
lative  philosopher.  "The  end  of  man,"  he  wrote,  "is  an 
action,  not  a  thought."  He  has  not  been  able  to  persuade  the 
time  that  it  is  going  wrong,  but  his  criticisms  have  been  whole- 
somely corrective  of  its  self-conceit.  In  a  democratic  age  he 
has  insisted  upon  the  undemocratic  virtues  of  obedience,  si- 
lence, and  reverence.  Ehrfurcht,  reverence — the  text  of  his 
address  to  the  students  of  Edinburgh  University  in  1866 — 
is  the  last  word  of  his  philosophy. 

In  1830  Alfred  Tennyson  (1809-1892),  a  young  graduate  of 
Cambridge,  published  a  tliin  duodecimo  of  154  pages  entitled 
Poems,  Chiefly  Lyrical.     The  pieces  in  this  little  volume, 


214  Feom  Chaucee  to  Tennyson. 

such  as  the  Sleeping  Beauty,  Ode  to  Memory,  and  Becollec- 
tions  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  were  full  of  color,  fragrance, 
melody ;  but  they  had  a  dream-like  character,  and  were  with- 
out definite  theme,  resembling  an  artist's  studies,  or  exercises 
in  music — a  few  touches  of  the  brush,  a  few  sweet  chords, 
but  no  aria.  A  number  of  them —  Clarihel,  Lilian,  Adeline, 
Isabel,  Mariana,  Madeline — were  sketches  of  women  ;  not 
character  portraits,  like  Browning's  Men  and  Women,  but 
impressions  of  temperament,  of  delicately  differentiated 
types  of  feminine  beauty.  In  Mariana,  expanded  from  a 
hint  of  the  forsaken  maid  in  Shakspere's  Measure  for  Meas- 
ure, "Mariana  at  the  moated  grange,"  the  poet  showed  an 
art  then  peculiar,  but  since  grown  familiar,  of  heightening 
the  central  feeling  by  landscape  accessories.  The  level 
waste,  the  stagnant  sluices,  the  neglected  garden,  the  wind 
in  the  single  poplar,  re-enforce,  by  their  monotonous  sympa- 
thy, the  loneliness,  the  hopeless  waiting  and  weariness  of  life 
in  the  one  human  figure  of  the  poem.  In  Mariana,  the  Ode 
to  Memory,  and  the  Dying  Sican,  it  was  the  fens  of  Cam- 
bridge and  of  his  native  Lincolnshire  that  furnished  Tenny- 
son's scenery. 

Stretched  wide  and  wild,  the  waste  enormous  marsh, 

"Wliere  from  the  frequent  bridge, 

Like  emblems  of  infinity, 

The  trenched  waters  run  from  sky  to  sky. 

A  second  collection,  published  in  1833,  exhibited  a  greater 
scope  and  variety,  but  was  still  in  his  earlier  manner.  The 
studies  of  feminine  types  were  continued  in  Margaret,  Fa- 
tima,  Eleanore,  Mariana  in  the  South,  and -4  Dream  of  Fair 
Women,  suggested  by  Chaucer's  Legend  of  Good  Women. 
In  the  Lady  of  Shalott  the  poet  first  touched  the  Arthurian 
legends.  The  subject  is  the  same  as  that  of  Elaine,  in  the 
Idylls  of  the  King,  but  the  treatment  is  shadowy,  and  even 
allegorical.  In  CEnone  and  the  Lotus  Eaters  he  handled 
Homeric  subjects,  but  in  a  romantic  fashion  which  contrasts 


Feom  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Present  Time.       216 

markedly  with  the  style  of  his  later  pieces,  Ulysses  and  Ti- 
thonus.  These  last  have  the  true  classic  severity,  and  are 
among  the  noblest  specimens  of  weighty  and  sonorous  blank 
verse  in  modern  poetry.  In  general,  Tennyson's  art  is  un- 
classical.  It  is  rich,  ornate,  composite ;  not  statuesque  so 
much  as  picturesque.  He  is  a  great  painter,  and  the  critics 
complain  that  in  passages  calling  for  movement  and  action 
— a  battle,  a  tournament,  or  the  like — his  figures  stand  still  as 
in  a  tableau;  and  they  contrast  such  passages  unfavorably 
with  scenes  of  the  same  kind  in  Scott,  and  with  Browning's 
spirited  ballad.  Sow  we  brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent 
to  Aix.  In  the  Palace  of  Art  these  elaborate  pictorial  effects 
were  combined  with  allegory  ;  in  the  Lotus  Eaters^  with 
that  expressive  treatment  of  landscape  noted  in  Mariana  ; 
the  lotus  land,  "  in  which  it  seemed  always  afternoon,"  re- 
flecting and  promoting  the  enchanted  indolence  of  the  he- 
roes. Two  of  the  pieces  in  this  1833  volume,  the  May 
Queen  and  the  Miller's  Daughter^  were  Tennyson's  first 
poems  of  the  affections,  and  as  ballads  of  simple  rustic  life 
they  anticipated  his  more  perfect  idyls  in  blank  verse,  such 
as  Dora,  the  Brook,  Edwin  Morris,  and  the  Gardener's 
Daughter.  The  songs  in  the  Miller's  Daughter  had  a  more 
spontaneous  lyrical  movement  than  any  thing  he  had  yet 
published,  and  foretokened  the  lovely  songs  which  interlude 
the  divisions  of  the  Princess,  the  famous  Bugle  Song,  the 
no-less  famous  Cradle  Song,  and  the  rest.  In  1833  Tennyson's 
friend,  Arthur  Hallam,  died,  and  the  effect  of  this  great  sor- 
row upon  the  poet  was  to  deepen  and  strengthen  the  character 
of  his  genius.  It  turned  his  mind  in  upon  itself,  and  set  it 
brooding  over  questions  which  his  poetry  had  so  far  left  un- 
touched ;  the  meaning  of  life  and  death,  the  uses  of  adver- 
sity, the  future  of  the  race,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and 
the  dealings  of  God  with  mankind. 

Thou  madest  Death :  and,  lo,  thy  foot 
Is  on  the  skiill  which  thou  hast  made. 


216  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

His  elegy  on  Hallam,  In  Memoriam,  was  not  published 
till  1850.  He  kept  it  by  him  all  those  years,  adding  section 
after  section,  gathering  up  into  it  whatever  reflections  crys- 
tallized about  its  central  theme.  It  is  his  most  intellectual  and 
most  individual  work;  a  great  song  of  sorrow  and  consola- 
tion. In  1842  he  published  a  third  collection  of  poems, 
among  which  were  Locksley  Hall,  displaying  a  ncAV  strength 
of  passion  ;  Ulysses,  suggested  by  a  passage  in  Dante :  pieces 
of  a  speculative  cast,  like  the  Tioo  Voices  and  the  Vision  of 
Sin;  the  song  Break,  Break,  Break,  which  preluded  In 
Memoriam;  and,  lastly,  some  additional  gropings  toward 
the  subject  of  the  Arthurian  romance,  such  as  Sir  Galahady 
Sir  Launcelot  and  Queen  Guinevere,  SindiMorted^ Arthur.  The 
last  was  in  blank  verse,  and,  as  afterward  incorporated  in  the 
Passing  of  Arthur,  forms  one  of  the  best  passages  in  the  Idylls 
of  the  King.  The  Princess,  a  Medley,  published  in  1849, 
represents  the  eclectic  character  of  Tennyson's  art;  a  mediae- 
val tale  with  an  admixture  of  modern  sentiment,  and  with 
the  very  modern  problem  of  woman's  sphere  for  its  theme. 
The  first  four  Idylls  of  the  King,  1859,  with  those  since 
added,  constitute,  when  taken  together,  an  epic  poem  on  the 
old  story  of  King  Arthur.  Tennyson  went  to  Malory's 
Morte  Darthur  for  his  material,  but  the  outline  of  the  first 
idyl,  Enid,  was  taken  from  Lady  Charlotte  Guest's  transla- 
tion of  the  Welsh  Mabinogion.  In  the  idyl  of  Guinevere 
Tennyson's  genius  reached  its  high-water  mark.  The  inter- 
view between  Arthur  and  his  fallen  queen  is  marked  by  a 
moral  sublimity  and  a  tragic  intensity  which  move  the  soul 
as  nobly  as  any  scene  in  modern  literature.  Here,  at  least, 
the  art  is  pure  and  not  "  decorated ; "  the  efiect  is  produced 
by  the  simplest  means,  and  all  is  just,  natural,  and  grand. 
Maud — a  love  novel  in  verse — published  in  1855,  and  con- 
siderably enlarged  in  1856,  had  great  sweetness  and  beauty, 
particularly  in  its  lyrical  portions,  but  it  was  uneven  in  exe- 
cution, imperfect  in  design,  and  marred  by  lapses  into  mawk- 


From  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Presext  Time.       217 

ishness  and  excess  in  language.  Since  1860  Tennyson  has 
added  little  of  permanent  value  to  his  work.  His  dramatic 
experiments,  like  Queen  Mary,  are  not,  on  the  whole,  success- 
ful, though  it  would  be  unjust  to  deny  dramatic  power  to  the 
poet  who  has  written,  upon  one  hand,  Guinevere  and  the 
Passing  of  Arthur,  and  upon  the  other  the  homely  dialectic 
monologue  of  the  Northern  Farmer. 

When  we  tire  of  Tennyson's  smooth  perfection,  of  an  art 
that  is  over  exquisite,  and  a  beauty  that  is  well-nigh  too 
beautiful,  and  crave  a  rougher  touch,  and  a  meaning  that 
will  not  yield  itself  too  readily,  we  turn  to  the  thorny  pages 
of  his  great  contemporary,  Robert  Browning  (1812-1889). 
Dr.  Holmes  says  that  Tennyson  is  white  meat  and  Browning 
is  dark  meat.  A  masculine  taste,  it  is  inferred,  is  shown  in 
a  pi'eference  for  the  gamier  flavor.  Browning  makes  us  think; 
his  poems  are  puzzles,  and  furnish  business  for  "  Browning 
Societies."  There  are  no  Tennyson  societies,  because  Ten- 
nyson is  his  own  interpreter.  Intellect  in  a  poet  may  display 
itself  quite  as  properly  in  the  construction  of  his  poem  as  in 
its  content;  we  value  a  building  for  its  architecture,  and  not 
•entirely  for  the  amount  of  timber  in  it.  Browning's  thought 
never  wears  so  thin  as  Tennyson's  sometimes  does  in  his 
latest  verse,  where  the  trick  of  his  style  goes  on  of  itself  with 
nothing  behind  it.  Tennyson,  at  his  worst,  is  weak.  Brown- 
ing, when  not  at  his  best,  is  hoarse.  Hoarseness,  in  itself,  is 
Tio  sign  of  strength.  In  Browning,  however,  the  failure  is 
in  art,  not  in  thought. 

He  chooses  his  subjects  from  abnormal  character  types, 
£uch  as  are  presented,  for  example,  in  Caliban  upon  Setebos, 
the  Grammarian'' s  Funeral,  My  La^t  Duchess  and  Mr. Sludge, 
the  Medium.  These  are  all  psychological  studies,  in  which 
the  poet  gets  into  the  inner  consciousness  of  a  monster,  a 
pedant,  a  criminal,  and  a  quack,  and  gives  their  point  of 
view.  They  are  dramatic  soliloquies;  but  the  poet's  self- 
identification  with  each    of    his   creations,  in  turn,  remains 


218  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

incomplete.  His  curious,  analytic  observation,  his  way  of 
looking  at  the  soul  from  outside,  gives  a  doubleness  to  the 
monologues  in  his  Dramatic  Lyrics,  1845,  Men  and  Wotnen, 
1855,  Dramatis  Personce,  1864,  and  other  collections  of  the 
kind.  The  words  are  the  words  of  Caliban  or  Mr.  Sludge; 
but  the  voice  is  the  voice  of  Robert  Browning.  His  first 
complete  poem,  Paracelsus,  1835,  aimed  to  give  the  true 
inwardness  of  the  career  of  the  famous  16th  century  doctor, 
whose  name  became  a  synonym  with  charlatan.  His  second, 
SorclellOf  1840,  traced  the  struggles  of  an  Italian  poet  who 
lived  before  Dante,  and  could  not  reconcile  his  life  with  his 
art.  Paracelsus  was  hard,  but  SordeUo  was  incomprehensi- 
ble. Browning  has  denied  that  he  was  ever  perversely 
crabbed  or  obscure.  Every  great  artist  must  be  allowed  to 
say  things  in  his  own  way,  and  obscurity  has  its  artistic  uses, 
as  the  Gothic  builders  knew.  But  there  are  two  kinds  of 
obscurity  in  literature.  One  is  inseparable  from  the  subtlety 
and  difficulty  of  the  thought  or  the  compression  and  preg- 
nant indirectness  of  the  phrase.  Instances  of  this  occur  in 
the  clear  deeps  of  Dante,  Shakspere,  and  Goethe.  The  other 
comes  from  a  vice  of  style,  a  willfully  enigmatic  and  unnatu- 
ral way  of  expressing  thought.  Both  kinds  of  obscurity 
exist  in  Browning.  He  was  a  deep  and  subtle  thinker,  but 
he  was  also  a  very  eccentric  writer;  abrupt,  harsh,  disjointed. 
It  has  been  well  said  that  the  reader  of  Browning  learns  a 
new  dialect.  But  one  need  not  grudge  the  labor  that  is 
rewarded  with  an  intellectual  pleasure  so  peculiar  and  so 
stimulating.  The  odd,  grotesque  impression  made  by  his 
poetry  arises,  in  part,  from  his  desire  to  use  the  artistic  val- 
ues of  ugliness,  as  well  as  of  obscurity;  to  avoid  the  shallow 
prettiness  that  comes  from  blinking  the  disagreeable  truth: 
not  to  leave  the  saltness  out  of  the  sea.  Whenever  he 
emerges  into  clearness,  as  he  does  in  hundreds  of  places,  he 
is  a  poet  of  great  qualities.  There  are  a  fire  and  a  swing  in 
his  Cavalier  Tunes,  and  in  pieces  like  the  Glove  and  the  Lost 


From  Death  of  Scott  to  the  Present  Time.       219 

Leader;  and  humor  in  such  ballads  as  the  Pied  Piper  of 
Hamelin  and  the  Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish  Cloister,  which 
appeal  to  the  most  conservative  reader.  He  seldom  deals 
directly  in  the  pathetic,  but  now  and  then,  as  in  Evelyn  Hope, 
the  Last  Ride  Together,  or  the  Incident  of  the  French  Camp, 
a  tenderness  comes  over  the  strong  verse 

as  sheathes 
A  film  the  mother  eagle's  eye 
"When  her  bruised  eaglet  breathes. 

Perhaps  the  most  astonishing  example  of  BroAvning's  mental 
vigor  is  the  huge  composition,  entitled  The  Ring  and  the 
Rook,  1868;  a  narrative  poem  in  twenty-one  thousand  lines 
in  which  the  same  story  is  repeated  eleven  times  in  eleven 
different  ways.  It  is  the  story  of  a  criminal  trial  which 
occurred  at  Rome  about  IVOO,  the  trial  of  one  Count  Guido 
for  the  murder  of  his  young  wife.  First  the  poet  tells  the 
tale  himself;  then  he  tells  what  one  half  the  world  said  and 
what  the  other;  then  he  gives  the  deposition  of  the  dying 
girl,  the  testimony  of  witnesses,  the  speech  made  by  the  count 
in  his  own  defense,  the  arguments  of  counsel,  etc.,  and, 
finally,  the  judgment  of  the  pope.  So  wonderful  are  Brown- 
ing's resources  in  casuistry,  and  so  cunningly  does  he  ravel 
the  intricate  motives  at  play  in  this  tragedy  and  lay  bare  the 
secrets  of  the  heart,  that  the  interest  increases  at  each  repe- 
tition of  the  tale.  He  studied  the  Middle  Age  carefully,  not 
for  its  picturesque  externals,  its  feudalisms,  chivalries,  and 
the  like;  but  because  he  found  it  a  rich  quarry  of  spiritual 
monstrosities,  strange  outcroppings  of  fanaticism,  supersti- 
tion, and  moral  and  mental  distortion  of  all  shapes.  It  fur- 
nished him  especially  with  a  great  variety  of  ecclesiastical 
types,  such  as  are  painted  in  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  The  Heretic's 
Tragedy,  and  The  Rishop  Orders  his  Tomb  in  St.  Praxeds 
Church. 

Browning's   dramatic    instinct    always   attracted  him   to 
the  stage.     His  tragedy,  Strafford  (1837),  was  written  for 


220  From  Chaucer  to  Tennysow. 

Macready,  and  put  on  at  Covent  Garden  Theater,  but  without 
pronounced  success.  He  wrote  many  fine  dramatic  poems, 
like  Pippa  Passes,  Colombe^s  Birthday,  and  In  a  Balcony; 
and  at  least  two  good  acting  plays,  Luria  and  A  Blot  in  the 
Scutcheon.  The  last  named  has  recently  been  given  to  the 
American  public,  with  Lawrence  Barrett's  careful  and  intel- 
ligent presentation  of  the  leading  role.  The  motive  of  the 
tragedy  is  somewhat  strained  and  fantastic,  but  it  is,  not- 
withstanding, very  effective  on  the  stage.  It  gives  one  an 
unwonted  thrill  to  listen  to  a  play,by  a  contemporary  English 
writer,  which  is  really  literature.  One  gets  a  faint  idea  of 
what  it  must  have  been  to  assist  at  the  first  niffht  of  Hamlet. 


1.  English  Literature  in  the  Reign  of  Victoria.  Henry 
Morley.     (Tauchnitz  Series.) 

2.  Victorian  Poets.  E.  C.  Stedman.  Boston:  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  1886. 

3.  Dickens.  Pickwick  Papers,  Nicholas  Nickleby,  David 
Copperfield,  Bleak  House,  Tale  of  Two  Cities. 

4.  Thackeray,  Vanity  Fair,  Pendennis,  Henry  Esmond, 
The  Newcoraes. 

5.  George  Eliot.  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,  Mill  on  the 
Floss,  Silas  Marner,  Romola,  Adam  Bede,  Middlemareh. 

6.  Macaulay.     Essays,  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome. 

7.  Carlyle.  Sartor  Resartus,  French  Revolution,  Essays 
on  History,  Signs  of  the  Times,  Characteristics,  Burns,  Scott, 
Voltaire,  and  Goethe. 

8.  The  Works  of  Alfred  Tennyson.  London:  Stranham 
&  Co.,  1872.     6  vols. 

9.  Selections  from  the  Poetical  Works  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing.    London:  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  1880.     2  vols. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX. 


geoffrey  chaucer, 

The  Pbiobess. 
[From  the  general  prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales.] 
There  was  also  a  nonne,  a  prioresse, 
That  of  hu«  smiling  was  ful  simple  and  coy  ; 
Hire  gretest  othe  n'as  but  by  Seint  Eloy ; 
And  she  was  cleped '  madame  Eglentme. 
Ful  wel  she  sange  the  service  devine, 
Entuned  in  hire  nose  ful  swetely  ; 
And  Frenche  she  spake  ful  fayre  and  fetisly  • 
After  the  scole  of  Stratford-atte-Bowe,* 
For  Frenche  of  Paris  was  to  hire  unknowe. 
At  mete  was  she  wel  ytaught  withalle  ; 
She  letle  no  morsel  from  hire  lippes  falle, 
Ne  wette  hire  fingres  in  hire  sauce  depe. 
"Wel  coude  she  carie  a  morsel,  and  wel  kepe, 
Thatte  no  drope  ne  fell  upon  hire  brest. 
In  curtesie  was  sette  ful  moche  hire  lesL* 
Hire  over  lippe  wiped  she  so  clene 
That  in  hu-e  cuppe  was  no  ferthing "  seue 
Of  grese,  whan  she  dronken  hadde  hire  draught 
Ful  semely  after  hire  mete  she  raught* 
And  sikerly '  she  was  of  grete  disport 
And  ful  plesant  and  amiable  of  port, 
And  peined  hire  to  contrefeten  chere 
Of  court,*  and  ben  estatelich  of  mauere 
And  to  ben  holden  digne  *  of  reverence. 
But  for  to  speken  of  hire  conscience, 

'  Called.       '  Neatly.       '  Stratford  on  the  Bow  (river) :  a  small  village  where  such 
French  as  was  spoken  would  be  provincial.      *  Delight.    •  Farthing,  bit.     •  Reached. 
Surely.       *  Took  pains  to  Imitate  court  manners.       *  Worthy. 


224  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

She  was  so  cliaritable  and  so  pitods, 
She  wolde  wepe  if  that  she  saw  a  mous 
Caughte  in  a  trappe,  if  it  were  ded  or  bledde. 
Of  smale  houndes  hadde  she,  that  she  fedde 
"Witli  rested  flesh  and  milk  and  wastel  brede.' 
But  sore  wept  she  if  on  of  liem  were  dede, 
Or  if  men  smote  it  with  a  yerde^  smert: ' 
And  all  was  conscience  and  tendre  herte. 

Palamon's  Farewell  to  Emelie. 

[From  the  Knlghtes  Tale.l 
Naught  may  the  woful  spirit  in  myn  herte 
Declare  o  *  point  of  all  my  sorwes  smerte 
To  you,  my  lady,  that  I  love  most. 
But  I  bequethe  the  service  of  my  gost 
To  you  aboven  every  creature. 
Sin  *  that  my  lif  ne  may  no  lenger  dure. 
Alas  the  wo  1  alas  the  peines  stronge 
That  I  for  you  have  suffered,  and  so  longe  1 
Alas  the  deth  1  alas  min  Emelie ! 
Alas  departing  of  our  compagnie ! 
Alas  min  hertes  queue !  alas  my  wif  I 
Min  hertes  ladle,  ender  of  my  lif! 
What  is  this  world?  what  axen  ^  men  to  have  ? 
Now  with  his  love,  now  in  his  colde  grave 
Alone  withouteii  any  compagnie. 
Farewel  my  swete,  farewel  min  Emelie, 
And  softe  take  me  in  your  armes  twey,' 
For  love  of  God,  and  herkeneth  ^  what  I  sey. 

Emelie  in  the  Garden. 

[From  the  Knlghtes  Tale.] 
Thus  passeth  yere  by  yere,  and  day  by  day, 
Till  it  felle  ones  in  a  morwe '  of  May 
That  Emelie,  that  fayrer  was  to  sene '" 
Than  is  the  lilie  upon  his  stalke  grene. 
And  fresher  than  the  May  with  floures  aewe, 
(For  with  the  rose  colour  strof  hire  hewe ; 

»  Fine  bread.        «  Stick.        »  Smartly.        ♦  One.        »  Since.        «  Ask.        «  Twa 
'  Hearken.       '  Morning.       "  See. 


Geoffrey  Chauceb.  226 

I  n'ot '  which  was  the  finer  of  hem  two) 
Er  it  was  day,  as  she  was  wont  to  do, 
She  was  arisen  and  all  redy  dight,' 
For  May  wol  have  no  slogardie  a-night. 
The  seson  priketh  every  gentil  herte, 
And  maketh  him  out  of  his  slepe  to  sterte, 
And  sayth,  "  Arise,  and  do  thin  observance." 
This  maketh  Emelie  ban  remembrance 
To  dou  honour  to  May,  and  for  to  rise. 
Yclothed  was  she  fresh  for  to  devise.* 
Hire  yelwe  here  was  broided  in  a  tresse 
Behind  hire  back,  a  yerde  long  I  gesse. 
And  in  the  gardin  at  the  sonne  uprist  * 
She  walketh  up  and  doun  wher  as  hire  list' 
She  gathereth  floures,  partie  white  and  red, 
To  make  a  sotel  *  gerlond  for  hire  hed, 
And  as  an  angel  hevenlich  she  song. 


Alisojj. 
iFrom  the  Mlllere's  Tale.] 
Fayre  was  this  yonge  wif,  and  therwithal 
As  any  wesel  hire  body  gent  and  smal ' 
A  seint  *  she  wered,  barred  al  of  silk, 
A  barm-cloth '  eke  as  white  as  mome  milk  '* 
Upon  hire  lendes  "  ful  of  many  a  gore, 
"White  was  hire  smok,  and  brouded  '^  al  before 
And  eke  behind  on  hire  colere  '*  aboute 
Of  cole-black  silk  within  and  eke  withoute. 
The  tapes  of  hire  white  volupere  '■* 
"Were  of  the  same  suit  of  hire  colere ; 
Hire  fillet  brode  of  silk  and  set  ful  hye ; 
And  sikerly  '*  she  had  a  likerous  '*  eye, 
Ful  smal  ypuUed  "  were  hire  browes  two. 
And  they  were  bent  and  black  as  any  slo. 
She  was  wel  more  blisful  on  to  see 
Than  is  the  newe  perjenete  '*  tree, 

'  Know  not.  "  Dressed.  *  Describe.  *  Sunrise.  *  Wherever  It  pleases  her. 
•  Subtle,  cunningly  enwoven.  '  Trim  and  sHm.  *  Girdle.  »  Apron.  "  Morn- 
ing's milk.  "  Loins.  "  Embroidered.  "  Collar.  "  Cap.  "*  Surely.  »•  'Wanton. 
"  Trimmed  fine.       **  Young  pear. 


226  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

And  softer  than  the  wolle  is  of  a  wether. 

And  by  hire  girdle  heng  a  purse  of  lether, 

Tasseled  with  silk  and  perled  with  latoun,' 

In  all  this  world  to  seken  up  and  doun 

Ther  n'is  no  man  so  wise  that  coude  thenche* 

So  gay  a  popelot  *  or  swiche  *  a  wenche. 

Ful  brighter  was  the  shining  of  hire  hewe 

Than  in  the  tour,  the  noble  yforged  uewe. 

But  of  hire  song,  it  was  as  loud  and  yerne  * 

As  any  swalow  sitting  on  a  berne. 

Thereto  she  coude  skip  and  make  a  game 

As  any  kid  or  calf  folowing  his  dame. 

Hire  mouth  was  swete  as  braket  *  or  the  meth,' 

Or  horde  of  apples  laid  in  hay  or  heth. 

Winsing  ^  she  was,  as  is  a  jolly  colt, 

Long  as  a  mast,  and  upright  as  a  bolt. 

A  broche  she  bare  upon  hire  low  colere, 

As  brode  as  is  the  bosse  of  a  bokelere.' 

Hire  shoon  were  laced  on  hire  legges  hie ; 

She  was  a  primerole,'"  a  piggesnie," 

For  any  lord,  to  liggen  '--  in  his  bedde. 

Or  yet  for  any  good  yeman  '*  to  wedde. 


anonymous  ballads  op  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centueies. 

Waly,  Waly  but  Love  be  Bonny. 

0  waly,'*  waly  up  the  bank, 

And  waly,  waly  down  the  brae,'* 
And  waly,  waly  yon  burn  '*  side, 

Where  I  and  my  love  wont  to  gae. 

Ilean'd  my  back  unto  an  aik," 

I  thought  it  was  a  trusty  tree ; 
But  first  it  bow'd  and  syne  '*  it  brak, 

Sae  my  true  love  did  lightly  me. 

•  Ornamented  with  pearl-shaped  beads  of  a  metal  resembling  brass.  *  Think. 
•  Puppet.  *  Such.  *  Brisk.  «  A  sweet  drink  of  ale,  honey,  and  spice.  ^  Mead. 
«  Skittish.  »  Buckler.  *•  Primrose.  "  Pansy.  >»  Lie.  '»  Yeoman.  "  An 
exclamation  of  sorrow,  woe  I  alau  I       i*  Hillside.        "Brook.       "Oak.       '*Then. 


Anonymous  Ballads.  227 

O  waly,  waly  but  love  be  bonny, 

A  little  time  while  it  is  new ; 
But  when  'tia  auld  it  waxeth  cauld, 

And  fades  away  like  the  morning  dew. 

0  wherefore  should  I  busk '  my  head  ? 

Or  wherefore  should  I  kame*  my  hair? 
For  my  tnie  love  has  me  forsook, 

And  says  he'll  never  love  me  mair. 

Now  Arthur-Seat  shall  be  my  bed, 
The  sheets  shall  ne'er  be  fyl'd  by  me ; 

Saint  Anton's  well*  shall  be  my  drink, 
Sinn  my  true  love  has  forsaken  me. 

Martinmas'  wind,  when  wilt  thou  blaw 
And  shake  the  green  leaves  off  the  tree? 

0  gentle  death,  when  wilt  thou  come  ? 
For  of  my  life  I'm  aweary, 

'Tis  not  the  frost  that  freezes  fell, 

Nor  blawing  snow's  inclemency ; 
'Tis  not  sic  cauld  that  makes  me  cry, 

But  my  love's  heart  grown  cauld  to  me. 

When  we  came  in  by  Glasgow  town 

"We  were  a  comely  sight  to  see; 
My  love  was  clad  in  the  black  velvet, 

And  I  myself  in  cramasie.* 

But  had  I  wist,  before  I  kissed. 

That  love  bad  been  sae  ill  to  win, 
I'd  lock'd  my  heart  in  a  case  of  gold, 

And  pin'd  it  with  a  silver  pin. 

Oh,  oh,  if  my  young  babe  were  bom. 

And  set  upon  the  nurse's  knee, 
And  I  myself  were  dead  and  gane. 

And  the  green  grass  growing  over  me  I 

> Adorn.        'Comb.        'At  the  foot  of  Aitbur's-Seat,  a  cllil  near  Edinburgh. 
*  Crimson. 


228  Fboih  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

The  Two  Cokbies.' 

As  I  was  walking  all  alane 

I  heard  twa  corbies  making  a  mane ; 

The  tane  unto  the  t'other  say, 

"  Where  sail  we  gang  and  dine  to-day?" 

"  In  behint  yon  auld  fail  *  dyke, 
I  wot  there  lies  a  new-slain  knight; 
And  naebody  kens  that  he  lies  there 
But  his  hawk,  his  hound,  and  lady  fair. 

"  His  hound  is  to  the  hunting  gane, 
His  hawk  to  fetch  the  wild  fowl  hame, 
His  lady's  ta'en  another  mate. 
So  we  may  mak  our  dinner  sweet 

"  Ye'U  sit  on  his  white  hause-bane,' 
And  I'll  pick  out  his  bonny  blue  een ; 
Wi'  ae*  lock  o'  his  gowden  hair, 
We'll  theck  *  our  nest  when  it  grows  bare. 

"  Mouy  a  one  for  him  makes  mane. 
But  nane  sail  ken  where  he  is  gane ; 
O'er  his  white  banes,  when  they  are  bare. 
The  wind  sail  blow  for  evermair." 

Bonnie  Geoege  Campbell. 

Hie  upon  Highlands  and  low  upon  Tay, 
Bonnie  George  (Jampbell  rade  out  on  a  day. 
Saddled  and  bridled  and  gallant  rade  he ; 
Hame  cam'  his  horse,  but  never  cam'  he. 

Out  came  his  auld  mother,  greeting  •  fu'  sair ; 
And  out  cam'  his  bonnie  bride,  riving  her  hair. 
Saddled  and  bridled  and  booted  rade  he ; 
Toom '  hame  cam'  the  saddle,  but  never  cam'  he. 

"  My  meadow  lies  green  and  my  corn  is  unshorn ; 
My  barn  is  to  bigg  *  and  my  babie's  unborn." 
Saddled  and  bridled  and  booted  rade  he; 
Toom  cam'  the  saddle,  but  never  cam'  he. 

> The  two  ravens.       'Turf.        » Neck-bone.       *  One.       »Tliach.       •Weeping. 
'  Empty.  '  Build. 


Edmund  Spenseb.  229 


edmund  spenser. 

The  Suitor's  Life. 

Full  little  knowest  thou  that  hast  not  tride, 
"What  hell  it  is  in  suing  long  to  bide; 
To  lose  good  days  that  might  be  better  spent ; 
To  wast  long  nights  in  pensive  discontent: 
To  speed  to-day,  to  be  put  back  to-morrow ; 
To  feed  on  hope,  to  pine  with  feare  and  sorrow ; 
To  have  thy  prince's  grace,  yet  want  her  peere's ' : 
To  have  thy  asking,  yet  waite  manie  yeers. 
To  fret  thy  soule  with  crosses  and  with  cares ; 
To  eate  thy  heart  through  comfortlesse  dispaires : 
To  fawne,  to  crowche,  to  waite,  to  ride,  to  ronne, 
To  spend,  to  give,  to  want,  to  be  undone ! 


The  Music  of  the  Bowee  of  Bliss. 

[From  the  Faerie  Queene.    Book  II.    Canto  XII.] 
Eftsoones  they  heard  a  most  melodious  sound, 
Of  all  that  mote  ^  delight  a  daintie  eare, 
Such  as  attonce '  might  not  on  living  ground, 
Save  in  this  paradise,  be  heard  elsewhere : 
Right  hard  it  was  for  wight  which  did  it  heare. 
To  read  what  manner  of  music  that  mote  *  bee; 
For  all  that  pleasing  is  to  living  eare 
"Was  there  consorted  in  one  harmonee ; 
Birdes,  voices,  instruments,  windes,  waters,  all  agree. 

The  joyous  birdes,  shrouded  in  chearef  uU  shade. 

Their  notes  unto  the  voyce  attempred  sweet; 

Th'  angelicall  soft  trembling  voyces  made 

To  th'  instruments  divine  respondence  meet ; 

The  silver  sounding  instruments  did  meet 

With  the  base  *  murmure  of  the  waters  fall ; 

The  waters  fall  with  difference  discreet, 

Now  soft,  now  loud,  unto  the  wind  did  call ; 

The  gentle  warbling  wind  low  answered  to  all.  .  .  . 

*  A  reference  to  Lord  Burleigh's  hostility  to  the  poet     '  Might.      »  At  once.     *  Basa. 


230  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

The  whiles  some  one  did  chaunt  this  lovely  lay; 
Ah  I  see,  whoso  fayre  thing  doest  f  aine '  to  see, 
In  springing  flowre  the  image  of  thy  dayl 
Ah  I  see  the  virgin  rose,  how  sweetly  shee 
Doth  first  peepe  foorth  with  bashfull  modestee, 
That  fairer  seemes  the  lesse  ye  see  her  may! 
.  Lo !  see,  soone  after  how  more  bold  and  free 
Her  bared  bosome  she  doth  broad  display ; 
Lo  I  see,  soone  after  how  she  fades  and  falls  away. 

So  passeth,  in  the  passing  of  a  day, 

Of  mortall  life  the  leafe,  the  bud,  the  flowre ; 

Ne  more  doth  florish  after  first  decay. 

That  earst  *  was  souglit  to  deck  both  bed  and  bowre 

Of  many  a  lady,  and  many  a  paramowre ! 

Gather  therefore  the  rose  whilst  yet  is  prime,* 

For  soone  comes  age  that  will  her  pride  deflowre: 

Gather  the  rose  of  love  whilst  yet  is  time, 

"Whilst  loving  thou  mayst  loved  be  with  equall  crime. 

The  House  of  Sleep. 
[From  the  Faerie  Queene.    Book  I.    Canto  I. 
He,  making  speedy  way  through  spersed  ayre, 
And  through  the  world  of  waters  wide  and  deepe. 
To  Morpheus'  house  doth  hastily  repaire: 
Amid  the  bowels  of  the  earth  fuU  steepe 
And  low,  where  dawning  day  doth  never  peepe. 
His  dwelling  is;  there  Tethys  his  wet  bed 
Doth  ever  wash,  and  Cynthia  still  doth  steepe 
In  silver  deaw  his  ever-drouping  hed, 
"Whiles  sad  Night  over  him  her  mantle  black  doth  spred. 

And  more  to  luUe  him  in  his  slumber  soft, 

A  trickling  streame  from  high  rock  tumbling  downe, 

And  ever-drizling  raine  upon  the  loft, 

Mixt  with  a  murmuring  winde,  much  like  the  sowne 

Of  swarming  bees,  did  cast  him  in  a  swowne. 

No  other  noyse,  nor  people's  troublous  cryes, 

As  still  are  wont  t'annoy  the  walled  towne, 

Might  there  be  heard;  but  careless  quiet  lyes 

"Wrapt  in  eternall  silence  farre  from  enimyes. 

•  Rejoice.  *  First,  formerly.  '  Spring. 


William  Shakspeeb.  231 


WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE. 
SONH-ET    XC. 

Then  hate  me  when  thou  wilt :  if  ever,  now : 

Now,  while  the  world  is  bent  my  deeds  to  cross, 
Join  with  the  spite  of  fortune,  make  me  bow, 

And  do  not  drop  in  for  an  after  loss. 
Ah  I  do  not  when  my  heart  hath  scaped  this  sorrow, 

Come  in  the  rearward  of  a  conquered  woe ; 
Give  not  a  windy  night  a  rainy  morrow. 

To  linger  out  a  purposed  overthrow. 
If  thou  wilt  leave  me,  do  not  leave  me  last, 

"When  other  petty  griefs  have  done  their  spite ; 
But  in  the  onset  come:  So  shall  I  taste 

At  first  the  very  worst  of  fortune's  might; 
And  other  strains  of  woe,  which  now  seem  woe, 

Compared  with  loss  of  thee,  will  not  seem  so. 


Song. 

[From  As  Tou  Like  If.] 
Blow,  blow,  thou  winter  wind, 
Thou  art  not  so  unkind 

As  man's  ingratitude; 
Thy  tooth  is  not  so  keen. 
Because  thou  art  not  seen 

Although  thy  breath  be  rude. 
Heigh  ho  1     Sing  heigh  ho!  unto  the  green  holly: 
Most  friendship  is  feigning,  most  loving  mere  folly. 
Then  heigh  ho  1  the  holly  I 
This  life  is  most  jolly. 

Freeze,  freeze  thou  bitter  sky, 
Thou  dost  not  bite  so  nigh 

As  benefits  forgot ; 
Though  thou  the  waters  warp. 
Thy  sting  is  not  so  sharp 

As  friend  remembered  not. 
Heigh  ho  1  sing  heigh  ho  1  etc. 


232  Fbom  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

The  Sleep  of  Kings. 

LFrom  Henry  JT^.— Part  II.] 

How  many  thousand  of  ray  poorest  subjects 

Are  at  this  hour  asleep  I  0  sleep,  0  gentle  sleep, 

Nature's  soft  nurse,  how  have  I  frighted  thee, 

That  thou  no  more  wilt  weigh  my  eyelids  down, 

And  steep  my  senses  in  forgetf  ulness  ? 

Why  rather,  sleep,  liest  thou  in  smoky  cribs, 

Upon  uneasy  pallets  stretching  thee. 

And  hushed  with  buzzing  night-flies  to  thy  slumber, 

Than  in  the  perfumed  chambers  of  the  great, 

Under  the  canopy  of  costly  state. 

And  lull'd  with  sounds  of  sweetest  melody  ? 

0  thou  dull  god,  why  liest  thou  with  the  vile, 

In  loathsome  beds ;  and  leav'st  the  kingly  couch, 

A  watcli-case,  or  a  common  'larum  bell  ? 

Wilt  thou  upon  the  high  and  giddy  mast 

Seal  up  the  ship-boy's  eyes,  and  rock  his  brains 

In  cradle  of  the  rude  imperious  surge; 

And  in  the  visitation  of  the  winds, 

Who  take  the  ruffian  billows  by  the  top, 

Curling  their  monstrous  heads,  and  hanging  them 

With  deaf 'ning  clamors  in  the  slippery  clouds. 

That,  with  the  hurly  death  itself  awakes  ? 

Can'st  thou,  0  partial  sleep !  give  thy  repose 

To  the  wet  sea-boy  in  an  hour  so  rude ; 

And,  in  the  calmest  and  most  stillest  night, 

With  all  appliances  and  means  to  boot. 

Deny  it  to  a  king  ?    Then,  happy  low-lie-down  1 

Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crowa. 

Falstaff  and  Bardolph. 

[From  Henry  1 F.— Part  I.l 

Falstaff.  Bardolph,  am  I  not  fallen  away  vilely  since  this  last  action  ?  do  I 
not  bate?  do  I  not  dwindle? 

Why,  my  skin  hangs  about  me  like  an  old  lady's  loose  gown;  I  am 
wither'd  like  an  an  old  apple-John. 

Well,  I'll  repent,  and  that  suddenly,  while  I  am  in  some  liking;  I  shall  b« 


William  Shakspere.  233 

out  of  heart  shortly,  and  then  I  shall  have  no  strength  to  repent.  An  I 
have  not  forgotten  what  the  iuside  of  a  church  is  made  of,  I  am  a  pepper- 
corn, a  brewer's  horse:  the  inside  of  a  church!  Company,  villainous 
company  hath  been  the  spoil  of  me: 

Bardolph.     Sir  John,  you  are  so  fretful,  you  cannot  live  long. 

Fal.  Why,  there  it  is.  Come,  sing  me  a  bawdy  song;  make  me  merry. 
I  was  as  virtuously  given,  as  a  gentleman  need  to  be ;  virtuous  enough ; 
swore  little;  diced,  not  above  seven  times  a  week;  paid  money  that  I 
borrowed,  three  or  four  times ;  lived  well,  and  in  good  compass :  and  now  I 
live  out  of  all  order,  out  of  all  compass. 

Bard.  Why  you  are  so  fat.  Sir  John,  that  you  must  needs  be  out  of  all 
compass ;  out  of  all  reasonable  compass.  Sir  John. 

Fed.  Do  thou  amend  thy  face,  and  I'll  amend  my  life :  Thou  art  our 
admiral,  thou  bearest  the  lantern  in  the  poop — but  'tis  in  the  nose  of  thee ; 
thou  art  the  knight  of  the  burning  lamp. 

Bard.     Why,  Sir  John,  my  face  does  you  no  harm. 

Fal  No,  I'll  be  sworn;  I  make  as  good  use  of  it  as  many  a  man  doth 
of  a  death's  head  or  a  memento  mori:  I  never  see  thy  face  but  I  think 
upon  hell-fire,  and  Dives  that  lived  in  purple ;  for  there  he  is  in  his  robes, 
burning,  burning.  If  thou  wcrt  anyway  given  to  virtue,  I  would  swear 
by  thy  face ;  my  oath  should  be :  By  this  fire :  but  thou  art  altogether 
given  over;  and  wert  indeed,  but  for  the  light  of  thy  face,  the  son  of 
utter  darkness.  When  thou  runn'st  up  Gad's  Hill  in  the  night  to  catch 
my  horse,  if  I  did  not  think  thou  hadst  been  an  ignis  fatuus,  or  a  ball  of 
wildfire,  there's  no  purchase  in  money.  0,  thou  art  a  perpetual  triumph, 
an  everlasting  bonfire-light !  Thou  hast  saved  me  a  thousand  marks  in 
links  and  torches,  walking  with  thee  in  the  night  betwixt  tavern  and 
tavern ;  but  the  sack  that  thou  hast  drunk  me,  would  have  bought  me  lights 
as  good  cheap,  at  the  dearest  chandler's  in  Europe.  I  have  maintained  that 
Salamander  of  yours  with  fire,  any  time  this  two  and  thirty  years;  Heaven 
reward  me  for  it  I 

The  Sevek  Ages  of  Man. 

[From  As  Tou  Like  It.] 

Jacques.  All  the  world's  a  stage, 

And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players : 
They  have  their  exits  and  their  entrances ; 
And  one  man  in  his  time  plays  many  parts, 
His  acts  being  seven  ages.     At  first,  the  infant, 
Mewling  and  puking  in  the  nurse's  arms ; 


284        From  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

Then  the  whining  school-boy,  with  his  satchel, 

And  shining  morning  face,  creeping  like  snail 

Unwillingly  to  school :  and  then,  the  lover, 

Sighing  like  furnace,  with  a  woeful  ballad 

Made  to  his  mistress'  eyebrow :  Then  a  soldier, 

Full  of  strange  oaths  and  bearded  like  a  pard, 

Jealous  in  honor,  sudden  and  quick  in  quarrel. 

Seeking  the  bubble  reputation 

Even  in  the  cannon's  mouth :  And  then  the  justice, 

In  fair  round  belly,  with  good  capon  lined, 

"With  eyes  severe  and  beard  of  formal  cut. 

Pull  of  wise  saws  and  modern  instances ; 

And  so  he  plays  his  part.     The  sixth  age  shifts 

Into  the  lean  and  slippered  pantaloon, 

With  spectacles  on  nose  and  pouch  on  side; 

His  youthful  hose,  well-saved,  a  world  too  wide 

For  his  shrunk  shank ;  and  his  big  manly  voice. 

Turning  again  toward  childish  treble,  pipes 

And  whistles  in  his  sound.     Last  scene  of  all, 

That  ends  this  strange  eventful  history. 

Is  second  childishness  and  mere  oblivion, 

Sans '  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste,  sans  every  thing. 

Hamlet's  Soliloquy. 
To  be,  or  not  to  be,  that  is  the  question : 
"Whether  'tis  nobler  in  the  mind,  to  suffer 
The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune ; 
Or  to  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles. 
And,  by  opposing,  end  them  ?     To  die — to  sleep — 
No  more ;  and,  by  a  sleep,  to  say  we  end 
The  heart-ache,  and  the  thousand  natural  shocks 
That  flesh  is  heir  to-^'tis  a  consummation 
Devoutly  to  be  wished:  to  die,  to  sleep; 
To  sleep  1  perchance  to  dream ;  ay,  there's  the  rub ; 
For  in  that  sleep  of  death  what  dreams  may  come, 
"When  we  have  shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil. 
Must  give  us  pause :  there's  the  respect, 
That  makes  calamity  of  so  long  life  : 
For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time. 
The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely, 

>  Without. 


William  Shakspeke.  235 

The  pangs  of  disprized  love,  the  law's  delay, 

The  insolence  of  office  and  the  spurns 

That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes, 

When  he  liimself  might  his  quietus  take 

With  a  bare  bodkin? '     Who  would  fardels '  bear, 

To  grunt  and  sweat  under  a  weary  life ; 

But  that  the  dread  of  something  after  death, 

The  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourn 

No  traveller  returns,  puzzles  the  will ; 

And  makes  us  rather  bear  those  ills  we  have, 

Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of? 

Thus  conscience  does  make  cowards  of  us  all ; 

And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 

Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought, 

And  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment, 

With  this  regard,  their  currents  turn  away 

And  lose  the  name  of  action. 

Detached  Passages  Fkom  the  Plays. 

To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow, 

Creeps  in  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day, 
To  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time ; 
And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death.     Out,  out,  brief  candle  I 
Life's  but  a  walking  shadow ;  a  poor  player. 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage, 
And  then  is  heard  no  more :  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury. 
Signifying  nothing. 

Our  revels  now  are  ended :  these  our  actors, 
As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits,  and 
Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air : 
And  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision. 
The  cloud-capped  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself — 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve, 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  *  behind.     We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  aud  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  *  with  a  sleep. 

*  Small  sword.  >  Burdens.  *  Cloud.  *  Encompassed. 


336        Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tenntson. 

Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not  where; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction  and  to  rot; 
This  sensible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod;  and  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice ; 
To  be  imprisoned  in  the  viewless  winds. 
And  blown  with  restless  violence  round  about 
The  pendent  world ;  or  to  be  worse  than  worst 
Of  those  that  lawless  and  uncertain  thoughts 
Imagine  howling  I  'tis  too  horrible  I 

0  who  can  hold  a  fire  in  his  hand, 
By  thinking  on  the  frosty  Caucasus  ? 
Or  cloy  the  hungry  edge  of  appetite 
By  bare  imagination  of  a  feast  ? 
Or  wallow  naked  in  December  snow, 
By  thinking  on  fantastic  summer's  heat  ? 
0  no  I  the  apprehension  of  the  good 
Gives  but  the  greater  feeling  to  the  worse. 

She  never  told  her  love. 
But  let  concealment,  like  a  worm  i'  the  bud, 
Feed  on  her  damask  cheek ;  she  pined  in  thought| 
And  with  a  green  and  yellow  melancholy. 
She  sat,  like  patience  on  a  monument, 
Smiling  at  grief. 

Ah  me  I  for  aught  that  ever  I  could  read, 

Could  ever  hear  by  tale  or  history, 

The  course  of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth: 

But  either  it  was  different  in  blood ; 

Or,  if  there  were  a  sympathy  in  choice, 

"War,  death,  or  sickness  did  lay  siege  to  it ; 

Making  it  momentary  as  a  sound. 

Swift  as  a  shadow,  short  as  any  dream. 

Brief  as  the  lightniijg  in  the  collied  '  night. 

That,  in  a  spleen,*  unfolds  both  heaven  and  earth. 

And  ere  a  man  hath  power  to  say.  Behold ! 

The  jaws  of  darkness  do  devour  it  up : 

So  quick  bright  things  come  to  confusion. 

'  Black.  '  Caprice,  whim. 


Fbancis  Bacoit.  237 


FRANCIS  BACON. 

Of  Death. 

[From  the  Essays.] 
Men  fear  death  as  chUdren  fear  to  go  in  the  dark ;  and  as  that  natural 
fear  in  children  is  increased  with  tales,  so  is  the  other.  Certainly,  the  con- 
templation of  death,  as  the  wages  of  sin,  and  passage  to  another  world,  is 
holy  and  religious ;  but  the  fear  of  it,  as  a  tribute  due  unto  nature,  is  weak. 
Yet  in  religious  meditations  there  is  sometimes  mixture  of  vanity  and  of 
superstition.  You  shall  read  in  some  of  the  friars'  books  of  mortification, 
that  a  man  should  think  with  himself  what  the  pain  is,  if  he  have  but  his 
finger's  end  pressed  or  tortured ;  and  thereby  imagine  what  the  pains  of 
death  are,  when  the  whole  body  is  corrupted  and  dissolved ;  when  many 
times  death  passeth  with  less  pain  than  the  torture  of  a  limb ;  for  the  most 
vital  parts  are  not  the  quickest  of  sense.  And  by  him  that  spake  only  as  a 
philosopher  and  natural  man,  it  was  weU  said,  Pompa  mortis  magis  terret 
quam  mors  ipsa}  Groans  and  convulsions,  and  a  discolored  face,  and 
friends  weeping,  and  blacks  and  obsequies,  and  the  like,  show  death  ter- 
rible. It  is  worthy  the  observing,  that  there  is  no  passion  in  the  mind  of 
man  so  weak  but  it  mates  and  masters  the  fear  of  death ,  and  therefore 
death  is  no  such  terrible  enemy,  when  a  man  hath  so  many  attendants  about 
him  that  can  win  the  combat  of  him.  Revenge  triumphs  over  death ;  love 
slights  it;  honor  aspireth  to  it;  grief  flieth  to  it;  fear  preoccupateth*  it. 
It  is  as  natural  to  die  as  to  be  born ;  and  to  a  little  infant  perhaps  the  one 
is  as  painful  as  the  other.  He  that  dies  in  an  earnest  pursuit  is  like  one 
that  is  wounded  in  hot  blood :  who,  for  the  time,  scarce  feels  the  hurt ;  and 
therefore  a  mind  fixed  and  bent  upon  somewhat  that  is  good  doth  avert  the 
dolours  of  death;  but,  above  all,  believe  it,  the  sweetest  canticle  is 
Nunc  dimittis,^  when  a  man  hath  obtained  worthy  ends  and  expectations. 
Death  hath  this  also,  that  it  openeth  the  gate  to  good  fame,  and  extinguisheth 
envy :  Extinctus  amabitur  idem.* 

Of  Studies. 
Studies  serve  for  delight,  for  ornament,  and  for  ability.  Their  chief  use 
for  delight  is  in  privateness  and  retiring:  for  ornament,  is  in  discourse; 
and  for  ability,  is  in  the  judgment  and  disposition  of  business ;  for  expert 
men  can  execute,  and  perhaps  judge  of  particulars,  one  by  one ;  but  the 
general  counsels,  and  the  plots  and  marshaling  of  afltairs  come  best  from 

•  The  shows  of  death  terrify  more  than  death  Itself.  •  Anticipates. 

'  Now  thou  dlsmlssest  us.  *  The  same  man  will  be  loved  when  dead. 


238  From  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

those  that  are  learned.  To  spend  too  much  time  in  studies,  is  sloth;  to 
use  them  too  much  for  ornament,  is  affectation;  to  make  judgment  wholly 
by  their  rules,  is  the  humor  of  a  scholar:  they  perfect  nature,  and  are  per- 
fected by  experience :  for  natural  abilities  are  like  natural  plants,  that  need 
pruning  by  study;  and  studies  themselves  do  give  forth  directions  too 
much  at  large,  except  they  be  bounded  in  by  experience.  Crafty  men  con- 
temn studies,  simple  men  admire  them,  and  wise  men  use  them ;  for  they 
teach  not  their  own  use ;  but  that  is  a  wisdom  without  them  and  above 
them,  won  by  observation.  Read  not  to  contradict  and  confute,  nor  to 
believe  and  take  for  granted,  nor  to  find  talk  and  discourse,  but  to  weigh  and 
consider.  Some  books  are  to  be  tasted,  others  to  be  swallowed,  and  some 
few  to  be  chewed  and  digested;  that  is,  some  books  are  to  be  read  only  in 
parts  ;  others  to  be  read,  but  not  curiously ;  '  and  some  few  to  be  read  wholly, 
and  with  diligence  and  attention.  Some  books  also  may  be  read  by  deputy, 
and  extracts  made  of  them  by  others ;  but  that  would  be  only  in  the  less 
important  arguments,*  and  the  meaner  sorts  of  books ;  else  distilled  books 
are,  like  common  distilled  waters,  flashy  things.  Reading  maketh  a  full  man, 
conference  a  ready  man,  and  writing  an  exact  man ;  and  therefore,  if  a  man 
write  little,  he  had  need  have  a  great  memory ;  if  he  confer  little,  he  had 
need  have  a  present  wit ;  and  if  he  read  little,  he  had  need  have  much  cun- 
ning, to  seem  to  know  that  he  doth  not.  Histories  make  men  wise ;  poets, 
witty ;  the  mathematics,  subtile ;  natural  philosophy,  deep ;  moral,  grave ; 
logic  and  rhetoric,  able  to  contend:  Abeunt  studia  in  mores ;^  nay,  there  ia 
no  stand  or  impediment  in  the  wit,  but  may  be  wrought  out  by  fit  studies: 
like  as  diseases  of  the  body  may  have  appropriate  exercises — bowling  is 
good  for  the  stone  and  reins,  shooting  for  the  lungs  and  breast,  gentle 
walking  for  the  stomach,  riding  for  the  head  and  the  like ;  so,  if  a  man's 
wit  be  wandering,  let  him  study  the  mathematics ;  for  in  demonstrations, 
if  his  wit  be  called  away  never  so  little,  he  must  begin  again ;  if  his  wit  be 
not  apt  to  distinguish  or  find  differences,  let  him  study  the  school-men,  for 
they  are  Cymini  sedores ;*  if  he  be  not  apt  to  beat  over  matters,  and  to  call 
up  one  thing  to  prove  and  illustrate  another,  let  him  study  the  lawyers' 
cases :  so  every  defect  of  the  mind  may  have  a  special  receipt. 


Op  Adversity. 

It  was  a  high  speech  of  Seneca  (after  the  manner  of  the  Stoics),  that 
"  the  good  things  which  belong  to  prosperity  are  to  be  wished,  but  the  good 
things  that  belong  to  adversity  are  to  be  admired  " — Bona  rerum  secunda- 
rum  optabilia,  adversarum  mirabilia.     Certainly,  if  miracles  be  the  command 

*  Attentively.        '  Subjects.       ^  Studies  pass  Into  the  character.        *  Hair-splitters. 


Fbancis  Bacon.  x  239 

over  Nature,  they  appear  most  in  adversity.  It  is  yet  a  higher  speech  of 
his  than  the  other  (much  loo  high  for  a  heathen),  "  It  is  true  greatness  to 
have  in  one  the  frailty  of  a  man  and  the  security  of  a  god  " —  Vere  mag- 
num habere  fragilitatem  hominis,  securitatem  dei.  This  would  have  done 
better  in  poesy,  where  transcendencies  are  more  allowed;  and  the  poets 
indeed  have  been  busy  with  it ;  for  it  is  in  effect  the  thing  which  is  figured 
in  that  strange  fiction  of  the  ancient  poets,  which  seemeth  not  to  be  without 
mystery  ;*  nay,  and  to  have  some  approach  to  the  state  of  a  Christian ; 
"  that  Hercules,  when  he  went  to  unbind  Prometheus  (by  whom  human 
nature  is  represented),  sailed  the  length  of  the  great  ocean  in  an  earthen  pot 
or  pitcher,"  lively  describing  Christian  resolution,  that  saileth  in  the  frail 
bark  of  the  flesh  through  the  waves  of  the  world.  But,  to  speak  in  a 
Tnean,^  the  virtue  of  prosperity  is  temperance,  the  virtue  of  adversity  is 
fortitude,  which  in  morals  is  the  more  heroical  virtue.  Prosperity  is  the 
blessing  of  the  Old  Testament,  adversity  is  the  blessing  of  the  New,  which 
carrieth  the  greater  benediction,  and  the  clearer  revelation  of  God's  favor. 
Yet,  even  in  the  Old  Testament,  if  you  listen  to  David's  harp,  you  shall  hear 
as  many  hearse-like  airs  as  carols ;  and  the  pencil  of  the  Holy  Ghost  hath 
labored  more  in  describing  the  afflictions  of  Job  than  the  fehcities  of 
Solomon.  Prosperity  is  not  without  many  fears  and  distastes  ;  and  adver- 
sity is  not  without  comforts  and  hopes.  "We  see  in  needle-works  and  em- 
broideries it  is  more  pleasing  to  have  a  lively  work  upon  a  sad  and  solemn 
ground,  than  to  have  a  dark  and  melancholy  work  upon  a  lightsome  ground : 
judge,  therefore,  of  the  pleasure  of  the  heart  by  the  pleasure  of  the  eye. 
Certainly  virtue  is  like  precious  odors,  most  fragrant  when  they  are  in- 
censed ^  or  crushed :  for  prosperity  doth  best  discover  vice,  but  adversity 
doth  best  discover  virtue. 


ben  jonson. 

Song  to  Celia. 

Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes, 

And  I  wUl  pledge  with  mine; 
Or  leave  a  kiss  but  in  the  cup, 

And  I'll  not  look  for  wine. 
The  thirst  that  from  the  soul  doth  rifle 

Doth  ask  a  drink  divine ; 
But  might  I  of  Jove's  nectar  sup 

I  would  not  change  for  thine. 

3  An  aUe(7orlcal  meanlnf;.       ^  Moderately,  tbat  is,  without  poetic  flsrures.       ^  Burnt. 


240  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

I  sent  thee  late  a  rosy  wreath, 

Not  so  much  honoring  thee, 
As  giving  it  a  hope,  that  there 

It  could  not  withered  be. 
But  thou  thereon  did'st  only  breathe 

And  sent'st  it  back  to  me : 
Since  when  it  grows  and  smells,  I  swear, 

Not  of  itself,  but  thee. 

Long  Life. 

It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree 
In  bulk,  doth  make  men  better  be ; 
Or  standing  long  an  oak,  three  hundred  year, 
To  fall  a  log  at  last,  dry,  bald,  and  sere : 
A  hly  of  a  day 
Is  fairer  far  in  May, 
Although  it  fall  and  die  that  night ; 
It  was  the  plant  and  flower  of  light 
In  small  proportions  we  just  beauty  see ; 
And  in  short  measures  life  may  perfect  be. 

Epitaph  on  the  Countess  of  Pembrokb. 

Underneath  this  sable  hearse 
Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse, 
Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother ; 
Death,  ere  thou  hast  slain  another, 
Learn'd  and  fair  and  good  as  she, 
Time  shall  throw  a  dart  at  thee. 

'  The  Thankless  Muse. 

[From  The  Poetaster.} 
0  this  would  make  a  learned  and  liberal  soul 
To  rive  his  stained  quill  up  to  the  back, 
And  damn  his  long-watched  labours  to  the  fire — 
Things  that  were  born  when  none,  but  the  still  night 
And  his  dumb  candle,  saw  his  pinching  throes ; 
Were  not  his  own  free  merit  a  more  crown, 
Unto  his  travails  than  their  reeling  claps.* 

*  Applauses. 


Ben  Jonson.  241 

This  'tis  that  strikes  me  silent,  seals  my  lips, 

And  apts  me  rather  to  sleep  out  my  time, 

Than  I  would  waste  it  in  contemned  strifes 

"With  these  vile  Ibides,'  these  unclean  birds 

That  make  their  mouths  their  clysters,  and  still  purge 

From  their  hot  entrails.    But  I  leave  the  monsters 

To  their  own  fate.     And,  since  the  Comic  Muse 

Hath  proved  so  ominous  to  me,  I  will  try 

If  tragedy  have  a  more  kind  aspect : 

Her  favors  iu  my  next  I  will  pursue, 

"Where,  if  I  prove  the  pleasure  but  of  one, 

So  he  judicious  be,  he  shall  be  alone 

A  theater  unto  me.     Once  I'll  'say* 

To  strike  the  ear  of  time  in  those  fresh  strains, 

As  shall,  beside  the  cunning  of  their  ground, 
Give  cause  to  some  of  wonder,  some  despite. 

And  more  despair  to  imitate  tljeir  sound. 
I,  that  spend  half  my  nights  and  all  my  days 

Here  in  a  cell,  to  get  a  dark  pale  face. 
To  come  forth  worth  the  ivy  or  the  bays, 

And  in  this  age  can  hope  no  other  grace — 
Leave  me  I     There's  something  come  into  my  thought 
That  must  and  shall  be  sung  high  and  aloof, 
Safe  from  the  wolf's  black  jaw  and  the  dull  ass's  hool* 


JOHN    FLETCHER  AND  FRANCIS    BEAUMONT. 

A  Song  op  True  Love  Dead. 

[From  The  Maid's  lyofredj/.l 

Lay  a  garland  on  my  hearse 

Of  the  dismal  yew ; 
Maidens  willow  branches  bear ; 

Say  I  died  true : 
My  love  was  false,  but  I  was  firm 

From  my  hour  of  birth ; 
TJpon  my  buried  body  lie 

Lightly,  gentle  earth. 

Flaral  of  Ibis.      •  That  is,  I  will  try  once  for  all.       •  That  Is,  envy  and  stupidity. 


242        Fkom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 


A  Song  of  Ceuel  Love.* 

[From  Rollo,  Duke  of  Normandy. "] 
Take,  oh  take  those  lips  away, 

That  so  sweetly  were  forsworn, 
And  those  eyes,  the  break  of  day, 

Lights  that  do  mislead  the  morn; 
But  my  kisses  bring  again, 
Seals  of  love,  though  sealed  in  vain. 

Hide,  oh  hide  those  hills  of  snow, 

"Wiiich  thy  frozen  bosom  bears. 
On  whose  tops  the  pinks  that  grow 

Are  of  those  that  April  wears ; 
But  first  set  my  poor  heart  free, 
Bound  in  those  icy  chains  by  thee. 

Sweet  Melancholy.' 

[From  The  Nice  Val(yr.'\ 
Hence,  all  your  vain  delights, 
As  short  as  are  the  nights 

Wherein  you  spend  your  folly  I 
There's  naught  in  this  life  sweet, 
If  man  were  wise  to  see't. 

But  only  melancholy : 

0  sweetest  melancholy  1 

Welcome,  folded  arms  and  fixed  eyes, 

A  sigh  that  piercing  mortifies, 

A  look  that's  fastened  on  the  ground, 

A  tongue  chained  up  without  a  sound  I 

Fountain-heads  and  pathless  groves. 

Places  which  pale  passion  loves. 

Moonlight  walks  when  all  the  fowls 

Are  warmly  housed,  save  bats  and  owls, 

A  midnight  bell,  a  parting  groan. 

These  are  the  sounds  we  feed  upon ; 

Then  stretch  our  bones  in  a  still  gloomy  valley: 

Nothing's  so  dainty  sweet  as  lovely  melancholy. 

1  The  Oist  stanza  of  this  song  was  probabfy  Shakspere's.  •  This  should  be 

compared  with  Milton's  II  Penserosa. 


John  Fletcher  akd  Fbancis  Beaumont.         243 

Cjbsae's  Lament  Over  Pompey. 

[From  The  False  One.] 
0  thou  conqueror, 

Thou  glory  of  the  world  once,  now  the  pity : 
Thou  awe  of  nations,  wherefore  didst  thou  fall  thus? 
What  poor  fate  followed  thee  and  plucked  thee  on 
To  trust  thy  sacred  life  to  an  Egyptian  ? 
The  life  and  light  of  Rome  to  a  blind  stranger 
That  honorable  war  ne'er  taught  a  nobleness. 
Nor  worthy  circumstance  showed  what  a  man  was? 
That  never  heard  thy  name  sung  but  in  banquets 
And  loose  lascivious  pleasures  ?    To  a  boy 
That  had  no  faith  to  comprehend  thy  greatness. 
No  study  of  thy  life  to  know  thy  goodness  ?     .     .     . 
Egyptians,  dare  you  think  your  high  pyramides. 
Built  to  out-dure  the  sun,  as  you  suppose, 
Where  your  unworthy  kings  lie  raked  in  ashes. 
Are  monuments  fit  for  him  ?    No,  brood  of  Nilus, 
Nothing  can  cover  his  high  fame  but  heaven  ; 
No  pyramid  set  off  his  memories. 
But  the  eternal  substance  of  his  greatness, 
To  which  I  leave  him. 


JOHN  MILTON. 

Fame. 

[From  Lycidas.'] 

Alas  1  what  boots  it  with  incessant  care 

To  tend  the  homely,  slighted,  shepherd's  trade, 

And  strictly  meditate  the  thankless  Muse  ? 

Were  it  not  better  done,  as  others  use, 

To  sport  with  Amaryllis  in  the  shade. 

Or  with  the  tangles  of  Nesera's  hair  ? 

Fame  is  the  spur  tliat  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise 

(That  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind) 

To  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days ; 

But  the  fair  guerdon  when  we  hope  to  find. 


244  Fkom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

And  thiuk  to  burst  out  into  sudden  blaze, 

Comes  the  blind  Fury  with  the  abhorred  shears,' 

And  slits  the  thin-spun  life.     "But  not  the  praise," 

Phoebus  replied,  and  touched  ray  trembling  ears : 

"  Fame  is  no  plant  that  grows  on  mortal  soil, 

Nor  in  the  glistering  foil 

Set  off  to  the  world,  nor  in  broad  rumour  lies, 

But  lives  and  spreads  aloft  by  those  pure  eyes 

And  perfect  witness  of  all-judging  Jove; 

As  he  pronounces  lastly  on  each  deed, 

Of  so  much  fame  in  heaven  expect  thy  meed." 

The  Pleas ltres  of  Melancholy. 

[From  II  Penseroso."] 

Sweet  bird  that  shun'st  the  noise  of  folly, 

Most  musical,  most  melancholy  1 

Thee,  chauntress,  oft  the  woods  among 

I  woo,  to  hear  thy  even-song ; 

And,  missing  thee,  I  walk  unseen 

On  the  dry  smooth-shaven  green. 

To  behold  the  wandering  moon. 

Riding  near  her  highest  noon. 

Like  one  that  had  been  led  astray 

Through  the  heaven's  wide  pathless  way. 

And  oft,  as  if  her  head  she  bowed. 

Stooping  through  a  fleecy  cloud. 

Oft,  on  a  plat  of  rising  ground, 

I  hear  the  far-off  curfew  sound, 

Over  some  wide-watered  shore. 

Swinging  slow  with  sullen  roar; 

Or,  if  the  air  will  not  permit, 

Some  still  removed  place  will  fit, 

Where  glowing  embers  through  the  room 

Teach  light  to  counterfeit  a  gloom. 

Far  from  all  resort  of  mirth, 

Save  the  cricket  on  the  hearth. 

Or  the  bellman's  drowsy  charm  ' 

To  bless  the  doors  from  nightly  harm.  .  .  . 

But  let  my  due  feet  never  fail 
To  walk  the  studious  cloister's  pale, 

•  Atropos,  the  fate  who  cuts  the  thread  of  life.         *  The  watchman's  call. 


John  Milton.  245 

And  love  the  high  embowM  roof, 

"With  antique  pillars  massy -proof, 

And  storied  windows  richly  dight, 

Casting  a  dim  religious  light 

There  let  the  pealing  organ  blow, 

To  the  full- voiced  quire  below, 

In  service  high  and  anthem  clear, 

As  may  with  sweetness,  through  mine  ear, 

Dissolve  me  into  ecstsies. 

And  bring  all  Heaven  before  mine  eyes. 

And  may  at  last  my  weary  age 
Find  out  the  peaceful  hermitage. 
The  hairy  gown  and  mossy  cell. 
Where  I  may  sit  and  rightly  spell 
Of  every  star  that  heaven  doth  shew, 
And  every  herb  that  sips  the  dew. 
Till  old  experience  do  attain 
To  something  like  prophetic  strain. 

These  pleasures.  Melancholy,  give ; 
And  I  with  thee  will  choose  to  live. 


The  Pbotectiok  of  Consciencb. 

[From  Comus.] 
Scene :  A  wild  wood ;  night. 

Lady :  My  brothers,  when  they  saw  me  wearied  out 
"With  this  long  way,  resolving  here  to  lodge 
Under  the  spreading  favor  of  these  pines. 
Stepped,  as  they  said,  to  the  next  thicket-side 
To  bring  me  berries,  or  such  cooling  fruit 
As  the  kind  hospitable  woods  provide. 
They  left  me  then  when  the  grey-hooded  Even, 
Like  a  sad  votarist  in  palmer's  weed. 
Rose  from  the  hindmost  wheels  of  Phoebus'  wain. 
But  where  they  are,  and  why  they  came  not  back. 
Is  now  the  labor  of  my  thoughts.     'Tis  likeliest 
They  had  engaged  their  wandering  steps  too  far ; 
And  envious  darkness,  ere  they  could  return, 
Had  stolen  them  from  me.     Else,  0  thievish  Night, 
"Why  shouldst  thou,  but  for  some  felonious  end. 


246  From  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

In  thy  dark  lantern  thus  close  up  the  stars 

That  Nature  hung  in  heaven,  and  filled  their  lamps 

With  everlasting  oil,  to  give  due  light 

To  the  misled  and  lonely  traveller  ? 

This  is  the  place,  as  well  as  I  may  guess, 

"Whence  even  now  the  tumult  of  loud  mirth 

Was  rife,  and  perfect  in  my  listening  ear ; 

Yet  nought  but  single  darkness  do  I  find. 

What  might  this  be  ?    A  thousand  fantasies 

Begin  to  throng  into  my  memory, 

Of  calling  shapes  and  beckoning  shadows  dire, 

And  airy  tongues  that  syllable  men's  names 

On  sands  and  shores  and  desert  wildernesses. 

These  thoughts  may  startle  well,  but  not  astound 

The  virtuous  mind,  that  ever  walks  attended 

By  a  strong  siding  champion,  Conscience. 

0,  welcome,  pure-eyed  Faith,  white-handed  Hope, 

Thou  hovering  angel  girt  with  golden  wings, 

And  thou  unblemished  form  of  Chastity  I 

I  see  ye  visibly,  and  now  believe 

That  He,  the  Supreme  Good,  to  whom  all  things  ill 

Are  but  as  slavish  officers  of  vengeance. 

Would  send  a  glistening  guardian,  if  need  were, 

To  keep  ray  life  and  honor  unassailed.  .  .  . 

Was  I  deceived,  or  did  a  sable  cloud 

Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night? 

I  did  not  err:  there  does  a  sable  cloud 

Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night. 

And  casts  a  gleam  over  this  tufted  grove. 

Invocation  to  Light. 

[From  Paradise  Lost.l 

Thee  I  revisit  safe. 
And  feel  thy  sovereign  vital  lamp ;  but  thou 
Revisitest  not  these  eyes,  that  roll  in  vain 
•  To  find  thy  piercing  ray,  and  find  no  dawn ; 

So  thick  a  drop  serene'  hath  quenched  their  orbs. 
Or  dim  suffusion  veiled.     Yet  not  the  more 
Cease  I  to  wander  where  the  Muses  haunt 
Clear  spring,  or  shady  grove,  or  sunny  hill, 

'  The  gutta  serena,  or  cataract. 


John  Milton.  247 

Smit  with  the  love  of  sacred  song;  but  chief 

Thee,  Sion,  and  tlie  flowery  brooks  beneath, 

That  wash  thy  hallowed  feet,  and  warbling  flow, 

Nightly  I  visit:  nor  sometimes  forget 

Those  other  two  equalled  with  me  in  fate, 

So  were  I  equalled  with  them  in  renown, 

Blind  Thamyris  and  blind  Maeonides,' 

And  Tiresias  and  Phineus,  prophets  old : 

Then  feed  on  thoughts  that  voluntary  move 

Harmonious  numbers ;  as  the  wakeful  bird 

Sings  darkling,  and  in  shadiest  covert  hid 

Tunes  her  nocturnal  note.     Thus  with  the  year 

Seasons  return,  but  not  to  me  returns 

Day,  or  the  sweet  approach  of  even  or  morn. 

Or  sight  of  vernal  bloom,  or  summer's  rose. 

Or  flocks,  or  herds,  or  human  face  divine  ; 

But  cloud  instead,  and  ever-duriug  dark. 

Surrounds  me,  from  the  cheerful  ways  of  men 

Cut  ofl",  and  for  the  book  of  knowledge  fair 

Presented  with  a  univresal  blank 

Of  nature's  works,  to  me  expunged  and  rased. 

And  wisdom  at  one  entranqp  quite  shut  out. 

So  much  the  rather  thou,  celestial  Light, 

Shine  inward,  and  the  mind  through  all  her  powers 

Irrai  ate  ;  there  plant  eyes,  all  mist  from  thence 

Purge  and  disperse,  that  I  may  see  and  tell 

Of  things  invisible  to  mortal  sight. 

Satan. 
[From  Paradise  Lost.] 
He  scarce  had  ceased  when  the  superior  Fiend 
Was  moving  toward  the  shore :  his  ponderous  shield, 
Etherial  temper,  massy,  large  and  round, 
Behind  him  cast ;  the  broad  circumference 
Hung  on  his  shoulders  like  the  moon,  whose  orb 
Through  optic  glass  the  Tuscan  artist*  views 
At  evening  from  the  top  of  Fesole,' 
Or  in  Valdamo,  to  descry  new  lands, 
Rivers  or  mountains  on  her  spotty  globe. 
His  spear  (to  equal  which  the  tallest  pine 

'  Homer.  '  Galileo.  *  A  hill  near  Florence. 


248  From  Chaucer  to  Teitnysok. 

Hewn  on  Norwegian  hills,  to  be  the  mast 

Of  some  great  ammiral,  were  but  a  wand) 

He  walked  with,  to  support  uneasy  steps 

Over  the  burning  marie,  not  like  those  steps 

On  heaven's  azure ;  and  the  torrid  clime 

Smote  on  him  sore  beside,  vaulted  with  fire. 

Nathless  he  so  endured,  till  on  the  beach 

Of  that  inflamed  sea  he  stood,  and  called 

His  legions,  angel-forms,  who  lay  entranced 

Thick  as  autumnal  leaves  that  strew  the  brooks 

In  Yallombrosa,  where  the  Etrurian  shades 

High  over-arched  embower,  or  scattered  sedge 

Afloat,  when  with  fierce  winds  Orion  armed 

Hath  vexed  the  Red  Sea  coast,  whose  waves  o'erthrew 

Busiris  and  his  Memphian  chivalry, 

"While  with  perfidious  hatred  they  pursued 

The  sojourners  of  Goshen,  who  beheld 

Prom  the  safe  shore  their  floating  carcasses 

And  broken  chariot-wheels :  so  thick  bestrewn, 

Abject  and  lost  lay  these,  covering  the  flood, 

Under  amazement  of  their  hideous  change. 


On  the  Late  Massacre  in  Piedmont.* 

Avenge,  0  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold ; 
Even  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old, 
When  all  our  fathers  worshipped  stocks  and  stones, 

Forget  not :  in  thy  book  record  their  groans 

Who  were  thy  sheep,  and  in  their  ancient  fold 
Slain  by  the  bloody  Piedmontese,  that  rolled 
Mother  with  infant  down  the  rocks.     Their  moans 

The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 

To  heaven.     Their  martyred  blood  and  ashes  sow 
O'er  all  the  Italian  fields,  where  still  doth  sway 

The  triple  Tyrant,''  that  from  these  may  grow 
A  hundred-fold,  who,  having  learnt  thy  way, 
Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  woe.' 

'  This  sonnet  refers  to  the  persecution  instituted  in  1655  by  the  Duke  of  Savoy 
against  the  Vaudols  Protestants.  '  The  Pope,  who  wore  the  triple  crown  or  tiara. 

•  The  Papacy,  with  which  the  Protestant  reformers  Identified  Babylon  the  Great,  the 
*'  Scarlet  Woman"  of  Revelation. 


Sib  Thomas  Beownb.  249 

Sm  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

The  Vanity  of  Moxuments. 
[From  Urn  BuriaXl 

There  is  no  antidote  against  the  opium  of  time,  which  temporally  con- 
sidereth  all  things.  Our  fathers  find  their  graves  in  our  short  memories, 
and  sadly  tell  us  how  we  may  be  buried  in  our  survivors.  Grave-stones  tell 
truth  scarce  forty  years.  Generations  pass  while  some  trees  stand,  and  old 
families  last  not  three  oaks.  .  .  .  The  iniquity*  of  obUvion  blindly  scattereth 
her  poppy,  and  deals  with  the  memory  of  men  without  distinction  to  merit 
of  perpetuity.  Who  can  but  pity  the  founder  of  the  pyramids  ?  Hero- 
stratus  lives,  that  burnt  the  temple  of  Diana,  he  is  almost  lost  that  built  it 
Time  hath  spared  the  epitaph  of  Adrian's  horse,  confounded  that  of  himself 
In  vain  we  compute  our  felicities  by  the  advantage  of  our  good  names,  since 
bad  have  equal  durations  and  Thersites'  is  like  to  live  as  long  as  Agamemnon. 
Who  knows  whether  the  best  of  men  be  known,  or  whether  there  be  not 
more  remarkable  persons  foi^ot  than  any  that  stand  remembered  in  the 
known  account  of  time  ?  Without  the  favor  of  the  everlasting  register, 
the  first  man  had  been  as  unknown  as  the  last,  and  Methusaleh's  long  life 
had  been  his  only  chronicle. 

Oblivion  is  not  to  be  hired.'  The  greater  part  must  be  content  to  be  as 
though  they  had  not  been,  to  be  found  in  the  register  of  God,  not  in  the 
record  of  man.  Twenty-seven  names  make  up  the  first  story,  and  the 
reported  names  ever  since  contain  not  one  Uving  century.  The  number 
of  the  dead  long  exceedeth  all  that  shall  Uve.  The  night  of  time  far  sur- 
passeth  the  day,  and  who  knows  when  was  the  equinox  ?  Every  hour  adds 
unto  that  current  arithmetic  which  scarce  stands  one  moment.  And  since 
death  must  be  the  Lucina*  of  life,  and  even  pagans  could  doubt  whether 
thus  to  live  were  to  die  ;  since  our  longest  sun  sets  at  right  descensiona 
and  makes  but  winter  arches,  and,  therefore,  it  cannot  be  long  before  we 
lie  down  in  darkness  and  have  our  light  in  ashes.  Since  the  brother*  of 
death  daily  haunts  us  with  dying  mementoes,  and  time  that  grows  old  in 
itself  bids  us  hope  no  long  duration ;  diuturnity  is  a  dream  and  folly  of 
expectation.  .  .  . 

There  is  nothing  strictly  immortal  but  immortality.  Whatever  hath  no 
beginning  may  be  confident  of  no  end.  All  others  have  a  dependent  being 
and  within  the  reach  of  destruction,  which  is  the  peculiar  of  that  neces- 
sary essence  that  cannot  destroy  itself,  and  the  highest  strain  of  omnipo- 

*  Injustice.      '  See  Shakspere's  Troilua  and  Cressida.      •  That  Is,  bribed,  bougbt  olt 
*  The  goddess  of  childbirth.    We  must  die  to  be  bom  aRaiu.  *  Sleep. 


250  From  Chaucer  to  TENinrsoN. 

tenc7,  to  be  so  powerfully  constituted  as  not  to  suffer  even  from  the  power 
of  itself.  But  the  sufficiency  of  Christian  immortality  frustrates  all  earthly 
glory,  and  the  quality  of  either  state  after  death  makes  a  folly  of  posthumous 
memory.  Grod,  who  can  only'  destroy  our  souls,  and  hath  assured  our  res- 
urrection, either  of  our  bodies  or  names  hath  directly  promised  no  duration. 
Wherein  there  is  so  much  of  chance  that  the  boldest  expectants  have  found 
unhappy  frustrations,  and  to  hold  long  subsistence  seems  but  a  scape^  in 
oblivion.  But  man  is  a  noble  animal,  splendid  in  ashes  and  pompous  in  the 
grave,  solemnizing  nativities  and  deaths  with  equal  lustre,  nor  omitting 
ceremonies  of  bravery  *  in  the  infamy  of  his  nature. 


john  dryden. 

The  Chaeacteb  op  Zimri/ 

[From  Ahmlom  and  Achitophel.] 
In  the  first  rank  of  these  did  Zimri  stand, 
A  man  so  various  that  he  seemed  to  be 
Not  one,  but  all  mankind's  epitome : 
Stiff  in  opinions,  always  in  the  wrong, 
Was  every  thing  by  turns,  and  nothing  long ; 
But  in  the  course  of  one  revolving  moon 
Was  chymist,  fiddler,  statesman,  and  buffoon ; 
Then  all  for  women,  painting,  rhyming,  drinking. 
Besides  ten  thousand  freaks  that  died  in  thinking. 
Blest  madman,  who  could  every  hour  employ 
With  something  new  to  wish  or  to  enjoy  I 
Railing  and  praising  were  his  usual  themes, 
And  both,  to  show  his  judgment,  in  extremes: 
So  over- violent  or  over-civil 
That  every  man  with  him  was  God  or  Devil. 
In  squandering  wealth  was  his  peculiar  art ; 
Nothing  went  unrewarded  but  desert 
Beggared  by  fools  whom  still  he  found  *  too  late. 
He  had  his  jest,  and  they  had  his  estate. 
He  laughed  himself  from  court ;  then  sought  relief 
By  forming  parties,  but  could  ne'er  be  chief: 

'  That  Is,  the  only  one  who  can.        '  Freak         '  Ostentation.        *  This  Is  a  satirical 
sketch  of  George  Villlers,  Duke  of  Buckingham.       ^  Found  out,  detected. 


John  Deyden.  251 

For  spite  of  him,  the  weight  of  business  fell 
To  Absalom  and  wise  Achitophel.' 
Thus,  wicked  but  in  will,  of  means  bereft, 
He  left  not  faction,  but  of  that  was  left. 


The  Cheats  of  Hope. 
[From  Aurengzebe.] 
"WTien  I  consider  life,  'tis  all  a  cheat ; 
Yet,  fooled  with  hope,  men  favor  the  deceit. 
Trust  on,  and  think  to-morrow  will  repay ; 
To-morrow's  falser  than  the  former  day, 
Lies  worse,  and  while  it  says  we  shall  be  blest 
"With  some  new  joys,  cuts  off  what  we  possessed- 
Strange  cozenage !  none  would  live  past  years  again. 
Yet  all  hope  pleasure  in  what  yet  remain, 
And  from  the  dregs  of  life  think  to  receive  i 

What  the  first  sprightly  running  could  not  give. 
I'm  tired  of  waiting  for  this  chymic*  gold 
Which  fools  us  young  and  beggars  us  when  old. 


JONATHAN  SWIPT. 

The  Emperor  of  Lilliput. 

[From  Gulliver's  Travde.] 

He  is  taller  by  almost  the  breadth  of  my  nail  than  any  of  his  court; 
which  alone  is  enough  to  strike  an  awe  into  the  beholders.  His  features 
are  strong  and  masculine,  with  an  Austrian  lip  and  arched  nose,  his  com- 
plexion olive,  his  countenance  erect,  his  body  and  limbs  well  proportioned, 
all  his  motions  graceful,  and  his  deportment  majestic.  He  was  then  past 
his  prime,  being  twenty-eight  years  and  three  quarters  old,  of  which  he  had 
reigned  about  seven  in  great  felicity,  and  generally  victorious.  For  the  better 
convenience  of  beholding  him,  I  lay  on  my  side,  so  that  my  face  was  par- 
allel to  his,  and  he  stood  but  three  yards  off ;  however,  I  have  had  him  since 
many  times  in  my  hand,  and  therefore  cannot  be  deceived  in  the  descrip- 

•  The  Duke  of  Monmouth  and  tbe  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.  '  The  gold  which  the 

alchemists  tried  to  make  from  base  metals. 


252  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

tion.  His  dresa  was  very  plain  and  simple,  and  the  fashion  of  it  between  the 
Asiatic  and  the  European ;  but  lie  had  on  his  head  a  light  helmet  of  gold, 
adorned  with  jewels  and  a  plume  on  the  crest.  He  held  his  sword  drawn 
in  his  hand  to  defend  himself,  if  I  should  happen  to  break  loose ;  it  was 
almost  three  inches  long:  the  hilt  and  scabbard  were  gold  enriched  with 
diamonds.  His  voice  was  shrill,  but  very  clear  and  articulate,  and  I  could 
distinctly  hear  it,  when  I  stood  up. 


The  Stbuldbrugs. 
[From  Giilliver''8  Travels.] 
One  day  in  much  good  company,  I  was  asked  by  a  person  of  quality 
whether  I  had  seen  any  of  their  Struldhrugs,  or  immortals  ?  I  said  I  had 
not,  and  desired  he  would  explain  to  me  what  he  meant  by  such  an  appella- 
tion, applied  to  a  mortal  creature.  He  told  me  that  sometimes,  though  very 
rarely,  a  child  happened  to  be  born  in  a  family  with  a  red  circular  spot  in 
the  forehead,  directly  over  the  left  eyebrow,  which  was  an  infallible  mark 
that  it  should  never  die.  ...  He  said  these  births  were  so  rare  that  he  did 
not  believe  there  could  be  above  eleven  hundred  Struldh-ugs  of  both  sexes 
in  the  whole  kingdom;  of  which  he  computed  about  fifty  iu  the  metropolis, 
and  among  the  rest,  a  young  girl  born  about  three  years  ago  ;that  these 
productions  were  not  peculiar  to  any  family,  but  a  mere  eflfect  of  chance  ; 
and  the  children  of  the  Struldh-ugs  themselves  were  equally  mortal  with  the 
rest  of  the  people.  .  .  .  After  this  preface,  he  gave  me  a  particular  ac- 
count of  the  Struldhrugs  among  them.  He  said  they  commonly  acted  like 
mortals  till  about  thirty  years  old;  after  which,  by  degrees,  they  grew 
melancholy  and  dejected,  increasing  in  both  till  they  came  to  fourscore. 
This  he  learned  from  their  own  confession;  for  otherwise,  there  not  being 
above  two  or  three  of  that  species  born  in  an  age,  they  were  too  few  to 
form  a  general  observation  by.  When  they  came  to  fourscore  years,  which 
is  reckoned  the  extremity  of  living  in  this  country,  they  had  not  only  all  the 
follies  and  infirmities  of  other  old  men,  but  many  more,  which  arose  from  the 
dreadful  prospect  of  never  dying.  They  were  not  only  opiuionative,  peevish, 
covetous,  morose,  vain,  talkative,  but  incapable  of  friendship  and  dead  to 
all  natural  affection,  which  never  descended  below  their  grandchildren. 
Envy  and  impotent  desires  are  their  prevailing  passions.  But  those  objects 
against  which  their  envy  seems  principally  directed  are  the  vices  of  the 
younger  sort  and  the  deaths  of  the  old.  By  reflecting  on  the  former,  they 
find  themselves  cut  ofE  from  all  possibility  of  pleasure ;  and  whenever  they 
see  a  funeral  they  lament  and  repine  that  others  are  gone  to  a  harbor  of 
rest,  to  which  they  themselves  never  can  hope  to  arrive.     They  have  no 


Jonathan  Swift.  253 

remembrance  of  any  thing  but  what  they  learned  and  observed  in  their 
youth  and  middle  age,  and  even  that  is  very  imperfect.  And  for  the  truth 
or  particulars  of  any  fact,  it  is  safer  to  depend  on  common  tradition  than 
upon  their  best  recollections.  The  least  miserable  among  them  appear  to 
be  those  who  turn  to  dotage  and  entirely  lose  their  memories  ;  these  meet 
with  more  pity  and  assistance,  because  they  want  many  bad  qualities  which 
abound  in  others.  ...  At  ninety,  they  lose  their  teeth  and  hair;  they 
have  at  that  age  no  distinction  of  taste,  but  eat  and  drink  whatever  they 
can  get,  without  relish  or  appetite.  The  diseases  they  were  subject  to 
still  continue,  without  increasing  or  diminishing.  In  talking,  they  forget 
the  common  appellation  of  things,  and  the  names  of  persons,  even  of  those 
who  are  their  nearest  friends  and  relatives.  For  the  same  reason  they 
never  can  amuse  themselves  with  reading,  because  their  memory  will  not 
serve  to  carry  them  from  the  beginning  of  a  sentence  to  the  end ;  and  by 
this  defect  they  are  deprived  of  the  only  entertainment  whereof  they 
might  otherwise  be  capable.  .  .  .  They  are  despised  and  hated  by  all 
sorts  of  people ;  when  one  of  them  is  born,  it  is  reckoned  ominous,  and  their 
birth  is  recorded  very  particularly.  .  .  .  They  were  the  most  mortifying 
sight  I  ever  beheld;  and  the  women  were  homelier  than  the  men 
Beside  the  usual  deformities  in  extreme  old  age,  they  acquired  an  additional 
ghastliness,  in  proportion  to  their  number  of  years,  which  is  not  to  be  de- 
scribed; and  among  half  a  dozen  I  soon  distinguished  which  was  the  eldest, 
although  there  was  not  above  a  century  or  two  between  them. 


ALEXANDER  POPE. 

A  Character  of  Addison. 

[From  the  EpiaUe  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot.] 
Peace  to  all  such  !  but  were  there  one  whose  fires 
True  genius  kindles  and  fair  fame  inspires ; 
Blest  with  each  talent  and  each  art  to  please, 
And  born  to  write,  converse,  and  live  with  ease : 
Siiould  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule  alone. 
Bear,  like  the  Turk,  no  brotiier  near  the  throne ; 
View  him  with  scornful,  yet  with  jealous  eyes. 
And  hate,  for  arts  that  caused  himself  to  rise ; 
Damn  with  faint  praise,  assent  with  civil  leer, 
And,  without  sneering,  teach  the  rest  to  sneer; 
Willing  to  wound,  and  yet  afraid  to  strike, 
Just  hint  a  fault  and  hesitate  dislike ; 


254  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Alike  reserved  to  blame  or  to  commend, 
A  timorous  foe  and  a  suspicious  friend ; 
Dreading  even  fools,  by  flatterers  besieged ; 
And  so  obliging  that  he  ne'er  obliged ; 
Like  Cato,'^  give  his  little  Senate  laws, 
And  sit  attentive  to  his  own  applause ; 
While  wits  and  templars  *  every  sentence  raise, 
And  wonder  with  a  foolish  face  of  praise — 
Who  but  must  laugh  if  such  a  man  there  be? 
Who  would  not  weep  if  Atticus  were  he  ? 


An  Ornament  to  Her  Sex. 

[From  the  Epistle  of  the  Characters  of  Women.'\ 

See  bow  the  world  its  veterans  rewards  I 

A  youth  of  frolic,  an  old  age  of  cards ; 

Fair  to  no  purpose,  artful  to  no  end, 

Young  without  lovers,  old  without  a  friend ; 

A  fop  their  passion,  but  their  prize  a  sot ; 

Alive,  ridiculous,  and  dead,  forgot. 

Ah  I  Friend,*  to  dazzle  let  the  vain  design ; 

To  raise  the  thought  and  touch  the  heart  be  thine  1 

That  charm  shall  grow,  while  what  fatigues  the  Ring* 

Flaunts  and  goes  down,  an  unregarded  thing. 

So  when  the  sun's  broad  beam  has  tired  the  sight, 

All  mild  ascends  the  moon's  more  sober  light, 

Serene  in  virgin  majesty  she  shines, 

And  unobserved,  the  glaring  orb  declines. 

Oh  1  blest  with  temper,  whose  unclouded  ray 

Can  make  to-morrow  cheerful  as  to-day ; 

She  who  can  love  a  sister's  charms,  or  hear 

Sighs  for  a  daughter  with  unwounded  ear; 

She  who  ne'er  answers  till  a  husband  cools. 

Or,  if  she  rules  him,  never  shows  she  rules ; 

Charms  by  accepting,  by  submitting  sways. 

Yet  has  her  humour  most  when  she  obeys ; 

Let  fops  or  fortune  fly  which  way  they  will, 

Disdains  all  loss  of  tickets  or  Codille  ;  * 

*  A  reference  to  Addison's  tragedy  of  Cato.  '  Young  lawyers  resident  In  the 
temple.  See  Spenser's  Prothalamion.  '  Martha  Blount,  a  dear  friend  of  the  poet's. 
*  The  fashionable  promenade  In  Hvde  Fark.        *  The  "  pool "  in  the  game  of  ombre. 


Alexandeb  Pope.  255 

Spleen,  vapours,  or  small-pox,  above  them  all, 
And  mistress  of  herself  though  china  fall.  .  .  . 
Be  this  a  woman's  fame:  with  this  unblest, 
Toasts  live  a  scorn,  and  queens  may  die  a  jest. 
This  PhcEbus  promised  (I  forget  the  year) 
When  those  blue  eyes  first  opened  on  the  sphere ; 
Ascendant  Phoebus  watched  that  hour  with  care. 
Averted  half  your  parents'  simple  prayer; 
And  gave  you  beauty,  but  denied  the  pelf 
That  buys  your  sex  a  tyrant  o'er  itself. 
The  generous  God  who  wit  and  gold  refines, 
And  ripens  spirits  as  he  ripens  mines, 
Kept  dross  for  duchesses,  the  world  shall  know  it, 
To  you  gave  sense,  good-humour,  and  a  poet. 


JOSEPH  ADDISON. 

SiGNOB   NiCOLINI   AND   THE   LlOK. 
[From  the  SpeetatorJ] 

There  is  nothing  that  of  late  years  has  aflTorded  matter  of  greater  amuse- 
ment to  the  town  than  Signor  Xicolini's  combat  with  a  lion  in  the  Hay- 
market,  which  has  been  very  often  exhibited  to  the  general  satisfaction  of 
most  of  the  nobility  and  gentry  in  the  kingdom  of  Great  Britain.  .  .  ,  But 
before  I  communicate  my  discoveries  I  must  acquaint  the  reader  that  upon 
my  walking  behind  the  scenes  last  winter,  as  I  was  thinking  on  something 
else,  I  accidentally  jostled  against  a  monstrous  animal  that  extremely 
startled  me,  and,  upon  my  nearer  survey  of  it,  appeared  to  be  a  lion  ram- 
pant. The  lion,  seeing  me  very  much  surprised,  told  me  in  a  gentle  voice 
that  I  might  come  by  him  if  I  pleased;  "for,"  says  he,  "I  do  not  intend  to 
hurt  any  body."  I  thanked  him  very  kindly  and  passed  by  him,  and  in  a 
little  time  after  saw  him  leap  upon  the  stage  and  act  his  part  with  very 
great  applause.  It  has  been  observed  by  several  that  the  lion  has  changed 
his  manner  of  acting  twice  or  thrice  since  his  first  appearance,  which  will 
not  seem  strange  when  I  acquaint  the  reader  that  the  lion  has  been  changed 
upon  the  audience  three  several  times. 

The  first  lion  was  a  candle-snufier,  who,  being  a  fellow  of  a  testy,  choleric 
temper,  overdid  his  part,  and  would  not  suffer  himself  to  be  killed  so  easily 
as  he  ought  to  have  done ;  besides,  it  was  observed  of  him  that  he  grew 


256  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

more  surly  every  time  he  came  out  of  the  lion;  and  having  dropt  some  words 
in  ordinary  conversation,  as  if  he  had  not  fought  his  best,  and  that  he 
suffered  himself  to  be  thrown  upon  his  bacic  in  the  scuffle,  and  that  he  would 
wrestle  with  Mr.  Nicoiini  for  wliat  he  pleased,  out  of  his  lion's  sicin,  it  was 
thought  proper  to  discard  him ;  and  it  is  verily  believed  to  this  day  that  had 
he  been  brought  upon  the  stage  another  time  he  would  certainly  have  done 
mischief.  Besides,  it  was  objected  against  the  first  lion  that  lie  reared  him- 
self so  high  upon  his  hinder  paws,  and  walked  in  so  erect  a  position,  that  he 
looked  more  like  an  old  man  than  a  lion. 

The  second  lion  was  a  tailor  by  trade,  who  belonged  to  the  play-house,  and 
had  the  cliaracter  of  a  mild  and  peaceful  man  in  his  profession.  If  the 
former  was  too  furious,  this  was  too  sheepish,  for  his  part ;  inasmuch  that, 
after  a  short,  modest  walk  upon  the  stage,  he  would  fall  at  the  first  touch  of 
'  Hydaspes ' '  without  grappling  with  him  and  giving  him  an  opportunity  of 
showing  hia  variety  of  Italian  trips;  it  is  said,  indeed,  that  he  once  gave  him 
a  rip  in  his  flesh-colored  doublet ;  but  this  was  only  to  make  work  for  him- 
self m  his  private  character  of  a  tailor.  I  must  not  omit  that  it  was  this 
second  lion  who  treated  me  with  so  much  humanity  behind  the  scenes. 

The  acting  lion  at  present  is,  as  I  am  informed,  a  country  gentleman  who 
does  it  for  his  diversion,  but  desires  his  name  may  be  concealed.  He  saya 
very  handsomely,  in  his  own  excuse,  that  he  does  not  act  for  gain,  that  he 
indulges  an  innocent  pleasure  in  it,  and  that  it  is  better  to  pass  away  an 
evening  in  this  manner  than  in  gaming  and  drinking;  but  at  the  same 
time  says,  with  a  very  agreeable  raillery  upon  liimself,that  if  his  name 
should  be  known  the  ill-natured  world  might  call  him  the  ass  in  the  lion's 
skin.  This  gentleman's  temper  is  made  out  of  such  a  happy  mixture  of  the 
mild  and  the  choleric  that  he  outdoes  both  his  predecessors,  and  has  drawn 
together  greater  audiences  than  have  been  known  in  the  memory  of  man. 

I  must  not  conclude  my  narrative  without  taking  notice  of  a  groundless 
report  that  has  been  raised  to  a  gentleman's  disadvantage,  of  whom  I  must 
declare  myself  an  admirer;  namely,  that  Signer  Nicoiini  and  the  lion  have 
been  seen  sitting  peaceably  by  one  another  and  smoking  a  pipe  together 
behind  the  scenes,  by  which  their  common  enemies  would  insinuate  that  it 
is  but  a  sham  combat  which  they  represent  upon  the  stage;  but  upon  in- 
quiry I  find  that  if  any  such  correspondence  has  passed  between  them  it  was 
not  till  the  combat  was  over,  when  the  lion  was  to  be  looked  upon  as  dead, 
according  to  the  received  rules  of  the  drama.  Besides,  this  is  what  is 
practiced  every  day  in  "Westminster  Hall,  where  nothing  is  more  usual  than 
to  see  a  couple  of  lawyers,  who  have  been  tearing  each  other  to  pieces  in 
the  court,  embracing  one  another  as  soon  as  they  are  out  of  it. 

*  In  the  opera  of  Hydaspes,  presented  at  the  Haymarket  In  1710,  the  hero,  whose 
part  was  taken  by  Signer  Nicoiini,  kills  a  lion  in  the  amphitheater. 


Samuel  Johnson.  257 


samuel  johnson. 
Detached  Passages  From  Bosavell's  Life. 

"We  talked  of  the  educatiou  of  children,  and  I  asked  him  what  he  thought 
was  best  to  teach  them  first.  Johnson:  Sir,  it  is  no  matter  what  you  teach 
them  first,  any  more  than  what  leg  you  sliall  put  into  your  breeches  first. 
Sir,  while  you  are  considering  which  of  two  things  you  should  teach  your 
child  first,  another  boy  has  learnt  them  both. 

Sir,  a  woman's  preaching  is  like  a  dog's  walking  on  his  hind  legs.  It  is 
not  done  well,  but  you  are  surprised  to  see  it  done  at  all. 

A  gentleman  who  had  been  very  unhappy  in  marriage  married  immediately 
after  his  wife  died.     Johnson  said  it  was  a  triumph  of  hope  over  experience. 

He  would  not  allow  Scotland  to  derive  any  credit  from  Lord  Mansfield, 
for  he  was  educated  in  England.  "Much,"  said  he,  "  may  be  made  of  a 
Scotchman  if  he  be  caught  young."  Johnson:  An  old  tutor  of  a  college  said 
to  one  of  his  pupils,  "  Read  over  your  compositions,  and  wherever  you 
meet  with  a  passage  which  you  think  is  particularly  fine  strike  it  out." 
A  gentleman  who  introduced  his  brother  to  Dr.  Johnson  was  earnest  to 
recommend  him  to  tlie  doctor's  notice,  which  he  did  by  saying:  ""When  we 
have  sat  together  some  time  you'll  find  my  brother  grow  very  entertaining." 

"Sir,"  said  Johnson,  "I  can  wait" 

"  Greek,  sir,"  said  he,  "  is  like  lace;  every  man  gets  as  much  of  it  as  he  can." 

Lord  Lucan  tells  a  very  good  story,  that  when  the  sale  of  Thrale's  brewery 
was  going  forward,  Johnson  appeared  bustling  about  with  au  inkhorn  and 
pen  in  his  button-hole,  like  an  exciseman,  and  on  being  asked  what  lie  really 
considered  to  be  the  value  of  the  property  which  was  to  be  disposed  of,  an- 
swered, ''We  are  not  here  to  sell  a  parcel  of  boilers  and  vats,  but  the 
potentiality  of  growing  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice." 

Johnson :  My  dear  friend,  clear  your  mind  of  cant.  Tou  may  talk  as  other 
people  do ;  you  may  say  to  a  man,  "  Sir,  I  am  your  most  humble  servant" 
You  are  not  his  most  humble  servant.  Tou  may  say,  ''  These  are  bad  times ; 
it  is  a  melancholy  thing  to  be  reserved  to  such  times."  Tou  don't  mind  the 
times.  Tou  tell  a  man,  "  I  am  sorry  you  had  such  bad  weather  the  last 
day  of  your  journey  and  were  so  much  wet"  Tou  don't  care  sixpence 
whether  he  is  wet  or  dry.  Tou  may  talk  in  this  manner;  it  is  a  mode  of 
talking  in  society,  but  don't  think  foolishly. 

A  lively  saying  of  Dr.  Johnson  to  Miss  Hannah  More,  who  had  expressed 
a  wonder  that  the  poet  who  had  written  Paradise  Lost  should  write  such 
poor  sonnets :  "  Milton,  madam,  was  a  genius  that  could  cut  a  colossus  from 
a  rock,  but  could  not  carve  heads  upon  cherry-stones." 

A  gentleman  having  said  that  a  conge  cCelire  has  not,  perhaps,  the  force  of 


258  From  Chaucer  to  Tenxyson. 

a  command,  but  may  be  considered  only  as  a  strong  recommendation: 
"Sir,"  replied  Johnson,  "it  is  such  a  recommendation  as  if  I  should  throw 
you  out  of  a  two  pair  of  stairs  window,  and  recommend  you  to  fall  soft." 

Happening  one  day  to  mention  Mr.  Flaxman,  the  doctor  replied,  "  Let 
me  hear  no  more  of  him,  sir ;  that  is  the  fellow  who  made  the  index  to  my 
Ramblers,  and  set  down  the  name  of  Milton  thus:  '  Milton,  Mr.  John.'  " 

Goldsmith  said  that  he  thought  he  could  write  a  good  fable,  mentioned 
the  simplicity  which  that  kind  of  composition  requires,  and  observed  that, 
in  most  fables,  the  animals  introduced  seldom  talk  in  character,  "  For 
instance,"  said  he,  ''the  fable  of  the  little  fishes,  who  saw  birds  fly  over 
their  heads,  and,  envying  them,  petitioned  Jupiter  to  be  changed  into  birds. 
The  skill,"  continued  he,  "  consists  in  making  them  talk  like  little  fishes." 
While  he  indulged  himself  in  this  fanciful  reverie,  he  observed  Johnson 
shaking  his  sides  and  laughing.  Upon  which  he  smartly  proceeded,  "  "Why, 
Dr.  Johnson,  this  is  not  so  easy  as  you  seem  to  think;  for  if  you  were  to 
make  little  fishes  talk,  they  would  talk  like  whales." 

He  expressed  a  particular  enthusiasm  with  respect  to  visiting  the  wall  of 
China.  I  caught  it  for  the  moment,  and  said  I  really  believed  I  should  go 
and  see  the  wall  of  China,  had  I  not  children  of  whom  it  was  my  duty  to 
take  care.  "Sir,"  said  he,  "by  doing  so,  you  would  do  what  would  be  of 
importance  in  raising  your  children  to  eminence.  There  would  be  a  luster 
reflected  upon  them  from  your  spirit  and  curiosity.  They  would  be  at  all 
times  regarded  as  the  children  of  a  man  who  had  gone  to  view  the  wall  of 
China — I  am  serious,  sir." 


OLIVER  GOLDSMITH. 

The  Village  Pastor  and    School-Master. 

[From  The  Deserted  VUlage-l 
Near  yonder  copse,  where  once  the  garden  smiled, 
And  still  where  many  a  garden  flower  grows  wild ; 
There,  where  a  few  torn  shrubs  the  place  disclose, 
The  village  preacher's  modest  mansion  rose. 
A  man  he  was  to  all  the  country  dear. 
And  passing  rich  with  forty  pounds  a  year; 
Remote  from  towns  lie  ran  his  godly  race. 
Nor  e'er  had  changed,  nor  wished  to  change,  his  place. 
Unskillful  he  to  fawn  or  seek  for  power 
By  doctrines  fashioned  to  the  varying  hour ; 


Olitbe  Goldsmith.  269 

Far  other  aims  his  heart  had  learned  to  prize, 
More  bent  to  raise  the  wretched  than  to  rise. 
His  liouse  was  known  to  all  the  vagrant  train — 
He  chid  their  wanderings,  but  relieved  their  pain ; 
The  long-remembered  beggar  was  his  guest, 
Whose  beard,  descending,  swept  his  aged  breast. 
The  ruined  spendthrift,  now  no  longer  proud, 
Claimed  kindred  there,  and  had  his  claims  allowed ; 
The  broken  soldier,  kindly  bade  to  stay. 
Sat  by  his  fire  and  talked  the  night  away ; 
"Wept  o'er  his  wounds,  or  tales  of  sorrow  done. 
Shouldered  his  crutch  and  showed  how  fields  were  won. 
Pleased  with  his  guests,  the  good  man  learned  to  glow, 
And  quite  forgot  their  vices  in  their  woe  ; 
Careless  their  merits  or  their  faults  to  scan, 
His  pity  gave  e'er  charity  began. 

Thus  to  relieve  the  wretched  was  his  pride. 
And  e'en  his  failings  leaned  to  virtue's  side.  ,  .  . 

At  church,  with  meek  and  unaffected  grace, 
His  looks  adorned  the  venerable  place ; 
Truth  from  his  lips  prevailed  with  double  sway. 
And  fools  who  came  to  scoff  remained  to  pray. 
The  service  past,  around  the  pious  man, 
With  steady  zeal,  each  honest  rustic  ran ; 
E'en  children  followed  with  endearing  wile 
And  plucked  his  gown  to  share  the  good  man's  smile. 
His  ready  smile  a  parent's  warmth  expressed, 
Their  welfare  pleased  him,  and  their  cares  distressed ; 
To  them  his  heart,  his  love,  his  griefs,  were  given. 
But  all  his  serious  thoughts  had  rest  in  heaven. 
As  some  tall  cliff,  that  lifts  its  awful  form. 
Swells  from  the  vale,  and  midway  leaves  the  storm, 
Though  round  its  breast  the  rolling  clouds  are  spread, 
Eternal  sunshine  settles  on  its  head. 

Beside  yon  straggling  fence  that  skirts  the  way. 
With  blossomed  furze  unprofitable  gay. 
There,  in  his  noisy  mansion,  skilled  to  rule. 
The  village  master  taught  his  little  school. 
A  man  severe  he  was,  and  stern  to  view ; 
I  knew  him  well,  and  every  truant  knew. 
Well  had  the  boding  tremblers  learned  to  trace 
The  day's  disasters  in  his  morning  face ; 


260        From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Full  well  they  laughed  with  counterfeited  glee 
At  all  his  jokes  (for  many  a  joke  had  he); 
Full  well  the  busy  whisper,  circling  round, 
Conveyed  the  dismal,  tidings  when  he  frowned 
Tet  he  was  kind,  or  if  severe  in  aught. 
The  love  he  bore  for  learning  was  his  fault. 
The  village  all  declared  how  much  he  knew — 
'Twas  certain  he  could  write  and  cipher  too ; 
Lands  he  could  measure,  times  and  tides  presage, 
And  e'en  the  story  ran  that  he  could  gauge. 
In  arguing,  too,  the  parson  owned  his  skill. 
For,  e'en  though  vanquished,  he  could  argue  still, 
While  words  of  learned  length  and  thundermg  sound 
Amazed  the  gazing  rustics  ranged  around ; 
And  still  they  gazed,  and  still  the  wonder  grew 
That  one  small  head  could  carry  all  he  knew. 


EDMUND   BURKE. 

The  Decay  of  Loyalty. 
[From  Reflections  on  the  BevoliUion  in  France.] 

It  is  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  since  I  saw  the  queen  of  France,' 
then  the  dauphiness,  at  Versailles ;  and  surely  never  lighted  on  this  orb, 
wliich  she  hardly  seemed  to  touch,  a  more  delightful  vision.  I  saw  her  just 
above  the  horizon,  decorating  and  cheering  the  elevated  sphere  she  just 
began  to  move  in  ;  glittering  like  the  morning  star,  full  of  life  and  splen- 
dor and  joy.  0,  what  a  revolution  I  and  wliat  a  heart  must  I  have  to 
contemplate  without  emotion  that  elevation  and  that  fall.  Little  did  I 
dream,  when  she  added  titles  of  veneration  to  those  of  enthusiastic,  distant, 
respectful  love,  that  she  should  ever  be  obliged  to  carry  the  sharp  antidote 
against  disgrace  concealed  in  that  bosom ;  little  did  I  dream  that  I  should 
have  lived  to  see  such  disasters  fallen  upon  her  in  a  nation  of  gallant  men,  in  a 
nation  of  men  of  honor  and  of  cavaUers.  I  thought  ten  thousand  swords 
must  have  leaped  from  the  scabbards  to  avenge  even  a  look  that  threatened 
her  wiih  insult.  But  the  age  of  chivalry  is  goue.  That  of  sophisters,  econ- 
omists, and  calculators  has  succeeded ;  and  the  glory  of  Europe  is  extin- 
guished forever.  Never,  never  more  shall  we  behold  that  generous  loyalty 
to  rank  and  sex,  that  proud  submission,  that  dignified  obedience,  that  s;'b- 

1  Marie  Antoinette, 


Edmund  Bukke.  261 

ordination  of  the  heart  which  kept  alive,  even  in  servitude  itself,  the  spirit 
of  an  exalted  freedom.  The  unbought  grace  of  life,  the  cheap  defense  of 
nations,  the  nurse  of  manly  sentiment  and  heroic  enterprise  is  gone !  It  is 
gone,  that  sensibility  of  principle,  that  chastity  of  honor,  which  felt  a 
stain  like  a  wound,  which  inspired  courage,  whilst  it  mitigated  ferocity, 
which  ennobled  whatever  it  touched,  aud  under  which  vice  itself  lost  half 
its  evil  by  losing  all  its  grossness.  ...  On  the  scheme  of  this  barbarous 
philosophy,  which  is  the  oflFspring  of  cold  hearts  and  muddy  understandings, 
and  which  is  as  void  of  solid  wisdom  as  it  is  destitute  of  aU  taste  and  ele- 
gance, laws  are  to  be  supported  only  by  their  own  terms,  and  by  the  concern 
which  each  individual  may  find  in  them  from  his  own  private  speculations, 
or  can  spare  to  them  from  his  own  private  interests.  In  the  groves  of  their 
academy,  at  the  end  of  every  vista,  you  see  nothing  but  the  gallows.  Noth- 
ing is  left  which  engages  the  affections  on  the  part  of  the  commonwealth. 
On  the  principles  of  this  mechanic  philosophy,  our  institutions  can  never  be 
embodied,  if  I  may  use  the  expresssion,  in  persons ;  so  as  to  create  in  us 
love,  veneration,  admiration,  or  attachment.  But  that  sort  of  reason  which 
banishes  the  aflfections  is  incapable  of  filling  their  place.  These  public 
afiections,  combined  with  manners,  are  required  sometimes  as  supplements, 
sometimes  as  corrections,  always  as  aids,  to  law.  Tlie  precept  given  by  a 
wise  man,  as  well  as  a  great  critic,  for  the  construction  of  poems,  is  equally 
true  as  to  states.  Non  satis  est  pulchra  esse  poemata,  dulcia  sunto.  There 
ought  to  be  a  system  of  manners  in  every  nation  which  a  well-formed  mind 
would  be  disposed  to  relish.  To  make  us  love  our  country,  our  country 
ought  to  be  lovely. 


thomas  gray. 

Odb  on  a  Distant  Peospect  of  Eton  College. 

Te  distant  spires,  ye  antique  towers. 

That  crown  the  watery  glade, 
Where  grateful  Science  still  adores 

Her  Henry's  *  holy  shade ; 
And  ye,  that  from  the  stately  brow 

Of  "Windsor's  heights  th'  expanse  below 
Of  grove,  of  lawn,  of  mead,  survey. 
Whose  turf,  whose  shade,  whose  flowers  amoi^ 
Wanders  the  hoary  Thames  along 

His  silver- winding  way: 

1  Henry  VI.,  founder  of  Eton  CoOege. 


262  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Ah  happy  hills,  ah  pleasing  shade, 

Ah  fields  beloved  in  vain, 
Where  once  my  careless  childhood  strayed, 

A  stranger  yet  to  pain  1 
I  feel  the  gales  tliat  from  ye  blow, 
A  momentary  bliss  bestovsr, 

As  waving  fresh  their  gladsome  wing 
My  weary  soul  they  seem  to  soothe, 
And,  redolent  of  joy  and  youth, 

To  breathe  a  second  spring. 

Say,  father  Thames,  for  thou  hast  seen 

Full  many  a  sprightly  race, 
Disporting  on  thy  margent  green, 

The  paths  of  pleasure  trace. 
Who,  foremost  now  delight  to  cleave 
With  pliant  arm  thy  glassy  wave  ? 

The  captive  linnet  which  enthral  ? 
What  idle  progeny  succeed 
To  chase  the  rolling  circle's  speed, 

Or  urge  the  flying  ball? 

While  some,  on  earnest  business  bent. 

Their  morning  labors  ply 
'Gainst  graver  hours,  that  bring  constraint 

To  sweeten  liberty : 
Some  bold  adventurers  disdain 
Tiie  limits  of  their  little  reign. 

And  unknown  regions  dare  discry : 
Still  as  they  run  they  look  behind, 
They  hear  a  voice  in  every  wind. 

And  snatch  a  fearful  joy. 

Gay  hope  is  theirs  by  fancy  fed. 

Less  pleasing  when  possest ; 
The  tear  forgot  as  soon  as  shed, 

The  sunshine  of  the  breast : 
Theirs  buxom  health  of  rosy  hue, 
Wild  wit,  invention  ever  new. 

And  lively  cheer  of  vigour  born ; 
The  thoughtless  day,  the  easy  night, 
The  spirits  pure,  the  slumbers  light, 

That  fly  th'  approach  of  mora. 


Thomas  Gray.  263 

Alas  1  regardless  of  their  doom 

The  little  victims  play. 
No  sense  have  they  of  ill  to  come, 

Nor  care  beyond  to-day: 
Yet  see  how  all  around  them  wait 
The  ministers  of  human  fate, 

And  black  Misfortune's  baleful  train  1 
Ah,  show  them  where  in  ambush  stand, 
To  seize  their  prey  the  murth'rous  band  I 

Ah,  tell  them  they  are  men ! 

These  shall  the  fury  Passions  tear, 

The  vultures  of  the  mind. 
Disdainful  Anger,  pallid  Fear, 

And  Shame  that  skulks  behind ; 
Or  pining  Love  shall  waste  their  youth, 
Or  Jealousy  with  rankling  tooth. 

That  only  gnaws  the  secret  heart. 
And  Envy  wan,  and  faded  Care. 
Grim-visaged,  comfortless  Despair, 

And  Sorrow's  piercing  dart. 

Ambition  this  shall  tempt  to  rise, 

Then  whirl  the  wretch  from  high, 
To  bitter  Scorn  a  sacrifice. 

And  grinning  Infamy, 
The  stings  of  Falsehood  those  shall  try, 
And  hard  Unkindness'  altered  eye. 

That  mocks  the  tear  it  forced  to  flow ; 
And  keen  Remorse  with  blood  defiled, 
And  moody  Madness  laughing  wild 

Amid  severest  woe. 

Lo  in  the  vale  of  years  beneath 

A  grisly  troop  are  seen, 
The  painful  family  of  Death, 

More  hideous  than  their  queen  : 
This  racks  the  joints,  this  fires  the  veina^ 
That  every  laboring  sinew  strains. 

Those  in  the  deeper  vitals  rage : 
Lo,  Poverty,  to  fill  the  band. 
That  numbs  the  soul  with  icy  hand, 

And  slow  consuming  Age. 


264  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

To  each  his  sufferings :  all  are  men, 

Condemned  alike  to  groan, 
The  tender  for  another's  pain, 

The  unfeeling  for  his  own. 
Yet  ah !  why  should  they  know  their  fate  ? 
Since  sorrow  never  comes  too  late, 

And  happiness  too  swiftly  flies, 
Thought  would  destroy  their  paradise. 
No  more ;  where  ignorance  is  bhss, 

'Tis  folly  to  be  wise. 


WILLIAM  COWPER. 

From  Lines  on  the  Receipt  op  his  Mother's   Picturk 

O,  that  those  lips  had  language  I  Life  has  passed 
"With  me  but  roughly  since  I  heard  thee  last. 
Those  lips  are  thine — thy  own  sweet  smile  I  see, 
The  same  that  oft  in  childhood  solaced  me ; 
Voice  only  fails,  else  how  distinct  they  say, 
"  Grieve  not,  my  child ;  chase  all  thy  fears  away  I" 

My  mother  I     When  I  learnt  that  thou  wast  dead, 
Say,  wast  thou  conscious  of  the  tears  I  shed  ? 
Hovered  *hy  spirit  o'er  thy  sorrowing  son, 
Wretch  even  then,  life's  journey  just  begun? 
I  heard  the  bell  tolled  on  thy  burial  day; 
I  saw  the  hearse  that  bore  thee  slow  away ; 
And,  turning  from  my  nursery  window,  drew 
A  long,  long  sigli,  and  wept  a  last  adieu  1 
Thy  maidens,  grieved  themselves  at  my  concern. 
Oft  gave  me  promise  of  thy  quick  return. 
What  ardently  I  wished  I  long  believed, 
And,  disappointed  still,  was  still  deceived  ; 
By  expectation  every  day  beguiled. 
Dupe  of  to-morrow  even  from  a  child. 
Thus  many  a  sad  to-morrow  came  and  went, 
Till,  all  my  stock  of  infant  sorrow  spent, 
I  learnt  at  last  submission  to  my  lot; 
But,  though  I  less  deplored  thee,  ne'er  forgot. 


William  Cowpeb.  266 

Winter  Evening. 

[From  The  Task.'] 
Now  stir  the  fire  and  close  the  shutters  fast, 
Let  fall  the  curtains,  wheel  the  sofa  round, 
And  while  the  bubbling  and  loud  hissing  urn 
Throws  up  a  steaming  column,  and  the  cups 
That  cheer  but  not  inebriate  wait  on  each, 
So  let  us  welcome  peaceful  evening  in.     .     .     , 

0  winter !  ruler  of  the  inverted  year, 

Thy  scattered  hair  with  sleet-like  ashes  filled. 
Thy  breath  congealed  upon  thy  lips,  thy  cheek 
Fringed  with  a  beard  made  white  with  other  snows 
Than  those  of  age,  thy  forehead  wrapped  in  clouds, 
A  leafless  branch  thy  sceptre,  and  thy  throne 
A  sliding  car,  indebted  to  no  wheels, 
But  urged  by  storms  along  its  slippery  way;- 

1  love  thee,  all  unlovely  as  thou  seemest, 

And  dreaded  as  thou  art.     Thou  boldest  the  sun 
A  prisoner  in  the  yet  undawning  east, 
Shortening  his  journey  between  mom  and  noon, 
And  hurrying  him,  impatient  of  his  stay, 
Down  to  the  rosy  west ;  but  kindly  still 
Compensating  his  loss  with  added  hours 
Of  social  converse  and  instructive  ease, 
And  gathering,  at  short  notice,  in  one  group 
The  family  dispersed,  and  fixing  thought, 
Not  less  dispersed  by  daylight  and  its  cares. 
I  crown  thee  king  of  intimate  delights, 
Fireside  enjoyments,  home-born  happiness 
And  all  the  comforts  that  the  lowly  roof 
Of  undisturbed  retirement,  and  the  hours 
Of  long  uninterrupted  evening  know. 

Man's  Inhumanity  to  Man. 

[From  The  Task.] 

0  for  a  lodge  in  some  vast  wilderness. 

Some  boundless  contiguity  of  shade, 

Where  rumor  of  oppression  and  deceit. 

Of  unsuccessful  or  successful  war 

Might  never  reach  me  more  1     My  ear  is  pained. 


268  From  Chaucer  to  Teistn^yson. 

My  soul  is  sick  with  every  day's  report 

Of  wrong  or  outrage  with  which  earth  is  filled. 

There  is  no  flesh  in  man's  obdurate  heart, 

It  does  not  feel  for  man ;  the  natural  bond 

Of  brotherhood  is  severed  as  the  flax 

That  falls  asunder  at  the  touch  of  fire. 


robert  burns. 

Tam   O'Shanter. 

When  chapman  billies'  leave  the  street, 
And  drouthy*  neebors  neebors  meet, 
As  market-days  are  wearing  late 
Ap'  folk  begin  to  tak  the  gate;  ' 
While  we  sit  bousing  at  the  nappy,* 
An'  getting  fou''  and  unco'  happy, 
We  think  na  on  the  lang  Scots  miles, 
The  mosses.''  waters,  slaps,*  and  styles, 
That  lie  between  us  and  our  hame, 
Whare  sits  our  sulky,  sullen  dame, 
Gathering  her  brows  like  gathering  storm, 
Nursing  her  wrath  to  keep  it  warm. 

This  truth  fand  honest  Tam  O'Shanter, 
As  he  frae  Ayr  ae^  niglit  did  canter, 
(Auld  Ayr,  wham  ne'er  a  town  surpasses, 
For  honest  men  and  bonnie  lasses.) 

0  Tam !  hadst  thou  but  been  sae  wise 
As  ta'en  thy  ain  wife  Kate's  advice  I 
She  tauld  thee  weel  thou  wast  a  skellum,'" 
A  blethering,"  blustering,  drunken  blellum;'* 
That  frae  November  till  October, 
Ae  market-day  thou  wasna  sober ; 
That  ilka  melder,'*  wi'  the  miller. 
Thou  sat  as  lang  as  thou  had  siller ; 
That  every  naig  was  ca'd  "  a  shoe  on, 
The  smith  and  thee  gat  roaring  fou  on ; 

'  Peddler  fellows.  '  Thirsty.  '  Road  home.  *  Ale.  *  Full.  •  Uncommonly. 
'  Swamps.  "  Gaps  In  a  hedge.  '  One.  '"  Good-for-nothing.  "  Babbling. 
'•  Gossip.       ' '  Every  time  com  was  sent  to  the  mill.       "  Driven. 


ROBEBT   BUBNS.  267 

That  at  the  Lord's  house,  even  on  Sunday, 

Thou  drank  wi'  Kirten  Jean  till  Monday. 

She  prophesy'd  that,  late  or  soon, 

Thou  would  be  found  deep  drowned  in  Doon, 

Or  catch'd  wi'  warlocks  in  the  mirk. 

By  Alio  way's  auld  haunted  kirk. 

Ah,  gentle  dames  I  it  gars  me  greet,' 
To  think  how  monie  counsels  sweet, 
How  monie  lengthened,  sage  advices 
The  husband  frae  the  wife  despises !    .    . 

Nae  man  can  tether  time  or  tide ; 
The  hour  approaches  Tam  maun '  ride ; 
That  hour,  o'  night's  black  arch  the  key-stane, 
That  dreary  hour  he  mounts  his  beast  in ; 
And  sic '  a  night  he  taks  the  road  in, 
As  ne'er  poor  sinner  was  abroad  in. 

The  wind  blew  as  'twad  blawn  its  last; 
The  rattling  showers  rose  on  the  blast ; 
The  speedy  gleams  the  darkness  swallowed ; 
Loud,  deep,  and  lang  the  thunder  bellowed : 
That  night,  a  child  might  understand, 
The  Deil  had  business  on  his  hand. 

(Mounted  on  his  gray  mare  Maggie,  Tam  pursues  his  homeward  way  in 
safety  till,  reaching  Kirk- Alio  way,  he  sees  the  windows  in  a  blaze,  and, 
looking  in,  beholds  a  dance  of  witches,  with  Old  Nick  playing  the  fiddle. 
Most  of  the  witches  are  any  thing  but  inviting,  but  there  is  one  winsome 
wench,  called  Nannie,  who  dances  in  a  "  cutty-sark,"  or  short  smock.) 

But  here  my  muse  her  wing  maun  cower; 
Sic  flights  are  far  beyond  her  power ; 
To  sing  how  Nannie  lap  and  flang  * 
(A  souple  jade  she  was,  and  Strang), 
And  how  Tam  stood  like  ane  bewitched, 
And  thought  his  very  e'en  enriched. 
Even  Satan  glowered  and  fidged  fu'  fain,* 
And  hotch'd  *  and  blew  wi'  might  and  main ; 
Till  first  ae  caper,  syne ''  anither, 
Tam  tint  *  his  reason  a'  thegither. 
And  roars  out,  "  Weel  done,  Cutty-sark ! " 

'  Makes  me  weep.  »  Must.        *  Such.        *  Leaped  and  flunj?.       *  Stared  and 

fidgeted  with  eagerness.       •  Hitched  about.       '  Then.       *  Lost. 


268  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

And  in  an  instant  all  was  dark : 
.  And  scarcely  had  he  Maggie  rallied, 
When  out  the  hellish  legion  sallied. 

As  bees  bizz  out  wi'  angry  fyke,' 
When  plundering  herds  assail  their  byke;' 
As  open  pussie's  mortal  foes, 
When,  pop  1  she  starts  before  their  nose ; 
As  eager  runs  the  market-crowd 
When  "  Catch  the  thief  1  "  resounds  aloud. 
So  Maggie  runs,  the  witches  follow 
Wi'  moiiie  an  eldritch  skreech  and  hollow, 

Ah,  Tam  I  ah,  Tam  I  tbou'U  get  thy  fairin'  I  » 
In  hell  they'll  roast  thee  like  a  herrin'  1 
In  vain  thy  Kate  awaits  thy  comin' : 
Kate  soon  will  be  a  woefu'  woman. 
Now  do  thy  speedy  utmost  Meg, 
And  win  the  key-stane  of  the  brig ;  * 
There  at  them  thou  thy  tail  may  toss, 
A  running  stream  they  dare  na  cross. 
But  ere  the  key-stane  she  could  make, 
The  fient*  a  tale  she  had  to  shake. 
For  Nannie,  far  before  the  rest. 
Hard  upon  noble  Maggie  pressed. 
And  flew  at  Tam  wi'  furious  ettle;  * 
But  little  wist  she  Maggie's  mettle — 
Ae  spring  brought  afE  her  master  hale,^  ■' 

But  left  behind  her  ain  gray  tail; 
The  carlin  *  claught  '  her  by  the  rump, 
And  left  poor  Maggie  scarce  a  stump. 

John  Andkrson. 

John  Anderson,  my  jo,"'  John, 

When  we  were  first  acquent. 
Tour  locks  were  like  the  raven. 

Your  bonnie  brow  was  brent ;  " 
But  now  your  brow  is  beld,  John, 

Your  locks  are  like  the  snow ; 
But  blessings  on  your  frosty  pow, 

John  Anderson,  my  jo. 

*■  Fu88.        » Hive.         '  Deserts.         *  Bridge.         » Devil.        •  Aim.         ^  Whole. 
8  Hajj.       » Caught.       'o  Sweetheart,       >«  Smoolu 


Robert  Buens.  269 

John  Anderson,  my  jo,  John, 

We  clamb  the  hill  thegither; 
And  monie  a  canty  '  day,  John, 

We've  had  wi'  ane  anither: 
Now  we  maun  totter  down,  John, 

But  hand  in  hand  we'll  go, 
And  sleep  thegither  at  the  foot, 

John  Anderson,  my  jo. 


WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH. 

Sonnet. 
The  world  is  too  much  with  us ;  late  and  soon, 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers : 
Little  we  see  in  Nature  that  is  ours  ; 
We  have  given  our  hearts  away,  a  sordid  boon! 
This  sea  that  bares  her  bosom  to  the  moon ; 
The  winds  that  will  be  howling  at  all  hours, 
And  are  up-gathered  now  like  sleeping  flowers — 

For  this,  for  every  thing,  we  are  out  of  tune ; 
It  moves  us  not.     Great  God  I  I'd  rather  be 
A  Pagan,  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn. 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea. 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn ; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn. 

The  Pee-existence  of  the  Soul. 

P^m  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality  from  Becollectlons  of  Early  Childhood.] 
Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep,  and  a  forgetting : 
The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 

And  coraeth  from  afar ; 
Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness. 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home. 
» Merry. 


270        From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy : 
Shades  of  the  prison-house  begin  to  close 

Upon  the  growing  boy ; 
But  he  beholds  the  light,  and  whence  it  flows, 

He  sees  it  in  his  joy. 
The  youth,  who  daily  farther  from  the  east 
Must  travel,  still  is  Nature's  priest, 

And  by  the  vision  splendid 

Is  on  his  way  attended ; 
At  length  the  man  perceives  it  die  away, 
And  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day.  .  .  . 

0  joy  I  that  in  our  embers 

Is  something  that  doth  live. 
That  nature  yet  remembers 
"What  was  so  fugitive ! 
The  thought  of  our  past  years  in  me  doth  breed 
Perpetual  benedictions :  not,  indeed. 
For  that  which  is  most  worthy  to  be  blest; 
Delight  and  liberty,  the  simple  creed 
Of  childhood,  whether  busy  or  at  rest, 
With  new-fledged  hope  still  fluttering  in  his  breast- 
Not  for  these  I  raise 

The  song  of  thanks  and  praise ; 

But  for  those  obstinate  questionings 

Of  sense  and  outward  things. 

Fallings  from  us,  vanishings ; 

Blank  misgivings  of  a  creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized. 
High  instincts,  before  which  our  mortal  nature 
Did  tremble,  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised : 

But  for  those  first  affections, 

Those  shadowy  recollections. 

Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day. 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing ; 

Uphold  us,  cherish,  and  have  power  to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  eternal  silence :  truths  that  wake 

To  perish  never ; 
Which  neither  listlessness,  nor  mad  endeavor, 


William  Wokdswobth.  271 

Nor  man  nor  boy, 
Nor  all  that  is  at  enmity  with  joy, 
Can  utterly  abolish  or  destroy. 
Hence,  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 

Though  inland  far  we  be. 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 

Which  brought  us  hither ; 
Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore. 

Lucy. 

She  dwelt  among  the  untrodden  ways 

Beside  the  springs  of  Dove, 
A  maid  whom  there  were  none  to  praise, 

And  very  few  to  love. 

A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone 

Half  hidden  from  the  eye : 
Fair  as  a  star,  when  only  one 

Is  shining  in  the  sky. 

She  lived  unknown,  and  few  could  know 

"When  Lucy  ceased  to  be ; 
But  she  is  in  her  grave,  and,  oh, 

The  difference  to  me  1 

The  Solitaby  Reaper. 

Behold  her,  single  in  the  field, 

Ton  solitary  Highland  lass  I 
Beaping  and  singing  by  herself; 

Stop  here,  or  gently  pass  I 
Alone  she  cuts  and  binds  the  grain, 
And  sings  a  melancholy  strain; 
O  listen  I  for  the  vale  profound 
Is  overflowing  with  the  sound. 

No  nightingale  did  ever  chant 

More  welcome  notes  to  weary  bands 
Of  travelers  in  some  shady  haunt, 

Among  Arabian  sands. 


872  From  Chaucer  to  Tennysoit. 

A  voice  so  thrilling  ne'er  was  heard 
In  spring-time  from  the  cuckoo-bird, 
Breaking  tlie  silence  of  the  seas 
Among  the  farthest  Hebrides. 

Will  no  one  tell  me  what  she  sings  ? 

Perhaps  the  plaintive  numbers  flow 
For  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things. 

And  battles  long  ago : 
Or  is  it  some  more  humble  lay, 
Familiar  matter  of  to-day  ? 
Some  natural  sorrow,  loss,  or  pain. 
That  has  been,  and  may  be  again  ? 

"Whate'er  the  theme,  the  maiden  sang 
As  if  her  song  could  have  no  ending, 

I  saw  her  singing  at  her  work, 
And  o'er  the  sickle  bending ; 

I  listened,  motionless  and  still, 

And,  as  I  mounted  up  the  hill. 

The  music  in  my  heart  I  bore, 

Long  after  it  was  heard  no  more. 

Skating  at  Night. 

[From  the  Prelude.l 

So  through  the  darkness  and  the  cold  we  flew, 

And  not  a  voice  was  idle;  with  the  din 

Smitten,  the  precipices  rang  aloud ; 

The  leafless  trees  and  every  icy  crag 

Tinkled  like  iron ;  while  far  distant  hills 

Into  the  tumult  sent  an  alien  sound 

Of  melancholy  not  unnoticed,  while  the  stars 

Eastward  were  sparking  clear,  and  in  the  west 

The  orange  sky  of  evening  died  away. 

Not  seldom  from  the  uproar  I  retired 

Into  a  silent  bay,  or  sportively 

Glanced  sideway,  leaving  the  tumultuous  throngf, 

To  cut  across  the  reflex  of  a  star 

That  fled,  and,  flying  still  before  me,  gleamed 

Upon  the  glassy  plain;  and  oftentimes, 

When  we  had  given  our  bodies  to  the  wind, 


William  "Wobdswobth.  27S 

And  all  the  shadowy  banks  on  either  side 

Came  sweeping  through  the  darkness,  spinning  still 

The  rapid  line  of  motion,  then  at  once 

Have  I,  reclining  back  upon  my  heels, 

Slopped  short ;  yet  still  the  solitary  cliffs 

"Wheeled  by  me — even  as  if  the  earth  had  rolled 

With  visible  motion  her  diurnal  round  1 

Behind  me  did  they  stretch  in  solemn  train, 

Feebler  and  feebler,  and  I  stood  and  watched 

Till  all  was  tranquil  as  a  dreamless  sleep. 


samuel  taylor  coleridge. 

The  Song  op  thb  Spieits. 
[From  The  AneUnt  Mariner.'] 
Sometimes,  a-dropping  from  the  sky, 

I  heard  tlie  skylark  sing; 
Sometimes  all  little  birds  that  are, 

How  they  seemed  to  fill  the  sea  and  air 
With  their  sweet  jargoning  1 

And  now  'twas  like  all  instruments, 

And  now»like  a  lonely  flute ; 
And  now  it  is  an  angel's  song 

That  makes  the  heavens  be  mute. 

It  ceased ;  yet  still  the  sails  made  on 

A  pleasant  noise  till  noon, 
A  noise  like  of  a  hidden  brook 

In  the  leafy  month  of  June, 
That  to  the  sleeping  woods  all  night 

Singeth  a  quiet  tune. 

Thb  Lovb  op  All  Cbbatubes. 

[From  tbe  same.] 
0  wedding  guest,  this  soul  hath  been 

Alone  on  a  wide,  wide  sea : 
So  lonely  'twas  that  God  himself 

Scarce  seemM  there  to  be. 


274        From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

0  sweeter  than  the  marriage  feaat, 
'Tis  sweeter  far  to  me, 
To  walk  together  to  the  kirk 
"With  a  goodly  company. 

To  walk  together  to  the  kirk, 

And  all  together  pray, 
While  each  to  his  great  Father  bends, 
Old  men  and  babes  and  loving  friends, 

And  youths  and  maidens  gay. 

Farewell,  farewell  I  but  this  I  tell 
To  thee,  thou  wedding  guest; 

He  prayeth  well  who  loveth  well 
Both  man  and  bird  and  beast. 

He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small ; 

For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us. 
He  made  and  loveth  all. 


Estrangement  op  Friends. 

[From  Chrigtabd.] 
Alas  I  they  had  been  friends  in  youth 
But  whispering  tongues  can  poison  truth, 
And  constancy  lives  in  realms  above. 

And  life  is  thorny  and  youth  is  vain, 
And  to  be  wroth  with  one  we  love 

Doth  work  like  madness  in  the  brain. 
And  thus  it  fared,  as  I  divine, 
"With  Roland  and  Sir  Leoline. 
Each  spake  words  of  high  disdain 
And  insult  to  his  heart's  best  brother; 
But  never  either  found  another 

To  free  the  hollow  heart  from  paining. 

They  stood  aloof,  the  scars  remaining, 
Like  cliffs  that  had  been  rent  asunder: 

A  dreary  sea  now  flows  between, 
But  neither  heat,  nor  frost,  nor  thunder 
Can  wholly  do  away,  I  ween, 
The  marks  of  that  which  once  has  been. 


"Waltbb  Scott.  87£ 

"walter  scott. 

Native  Land. 
[From  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Mingtrd.l 

Breathes  there  the  man,  with  soul  so  dead, 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said, 

This  is  my  own,  my  native  land  ? 
Whose  heart  hath  ne'er  within  him  burned, 
As  .home  his  footsteps  he  hath  turned, 

From  wandering  on  a  foreign  strand  ? 
If  such  there  breathe,  go  mark  him  well ; 
For  him  no  minstrel  raptures  swell ; 
High  though  his  titles,  proud  his  name, 
Boundless  his  wealth  as  wish  can  claim; 
Despite  those  titles,  power,  and  pelf, 
The  wretch  concentred  all  in  self, 
Living,  shall  forfeit  fair  renown. 
And,  doubly  dying,  shall  go  down 
To  the  vile  dust  from  whence  he  sprung, 
Unwept,  unlionored,  and  unsung. 

0  Caledonia !  stem  and  wild. 

Meet  nurse  for  a  poetic  child  I 

Land  of  brown  heath  and  shaggy  wood. 

Land  of  the  mountain  and  the  flood, 

Land  of  my  sires  I  what  mortal  hand 

Can  e'er  untie  the  filial  band 

That  knits  me  to  thy  rugged  strand? 

Still,  as  I  view  each  well-known  scene, 

Think  what  is  now,  and  what  hath  been, 

Seems  as,  to  me,  of  all  bereft 

Sole  friends  thy  woods  and  streams  are  left: 

And  thus  I  love  them  better  still 

Even  in  extremity  of  ilL 

By  Yarrow's  stream  still  let  me  stray. 

Though  none  should  guide  my  feeble  way; 

Still  feel  the  breeze  down  Ettrick  break. 

Although  it  chill  my  withered  cheek ; 

Still  lay  my  head  by  Teviot's  stone, 

Though  there,  forgotten  and  alone. 

The  bard  may  draw  his  parting  groan. 


276  From  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

Sunset  on  the  Bordeb. 

[From  Marmion.'] 

Day  set  on  Norham's  castled  steep 
And  Tweed's  fair  river,  broad  and  deep, 

And  Cheviot's  mountains  lone : 
The  battled  towers,  the  donjon  keep, 
The  loop-hole  grates  where  captives  weeft 
The  flanking  walls  that  round  it  sweep. 

In  yellow  luster  shone. 
The  warriors  on  the  turrets  high, 
Moving  athwart  the  evening  sky 

Seemed  forms  of  giant  height : 
Their  armor,  as  it  caught  the  rays, 
Flashed  back  again  the  western  blaze. 

In  lines  of  dazzling  light. 

St.  George's  banner,  broad  and  gay, 
Now  faded,  as  the  fading  ray 

Less  bright,  and  less  was  flung; 
The  evening  gale  had  scarce  the  power 
To  wave  it  on  the  donjon  tower, 

So  heavily  it  hung. 
The  scouts  had  parted  on  their  search, 

The  castle  gates  were  barred ; 
Above  the  gloomy  portal  arch, 
Timing  his  footsteps  to  a  march, 

The  warden  kept  his  guard ; 
Low  humming,  as  he  passed  along, 
Some  ancient  border-gathering  song. 

Proud  Maisie. 

Proud  Maisie  is  in  the  wood 

Walking  so  early ; 
Sweet  Robin  sits  on  the  bush 

Singing  so  rarely. 

"  Tell  me,  thou  bonny  bird, 
"When  shall  I  marry  me  ?  " 

— "  When  six  braw'  gentlemen 
Kirkward  shall  carry  ye." 

>  Brave,  One. 


"Walter  Scott.  277 

"  "Who  makes  the  bridal  bed, 

Birdie,  say  truly  ?  " 
"  The  gray-headed  sexton 

That  delves  the  grave  duly. 

"  The  glow-worm  o'er  grave  and  stone 

Shall  light  thee  steady; 
The  owl  from  the  steeple  slug 

Welcome,  proud  lady." 

PiBEOCH  OF  DONUIL  DhU. 
Pibroch  of  Donuil  Dhu,  Pibroch  of  Donuil, 
"Wake  thy  wild  voice  anew,  summon  Clan-ConuiL 
Come  away,  come  away,  hark  to  the  summons  I 
Come  in  your  war  array,  gentles  and  commons. 

Come  from  deep  glen  and  from  mountain  so  rocky, 
The  war-pipe  and  pennon  are  at  Inverlochy. 
Come  every  hill-plaid  and  true  heart  that  wears  one, 
Come  every  steel  blade  and  strong  hand  that  bears  one. 

Leave  untended  the  herd,  the  flock  without  shelter ; 
Leave  the  corpse  uninterred,  the  bride  at  the  altar ; 
Leave  the  deer,  leave  the  steer,  leave  nets  and  barges : 
Come  with  your  fighting  gear,  broadswords  and  targes. 

Come  as  the  winds  come  when  forests  are  rended ; 
Come  as  the  waves  come  when  navies  are  stranded ; 
Faster  come,  faster  come ;  faster  and  faster, 
Chief,  vassal,  page  and  groom,  tenant  and  master. 

Fast  they  come,  fast  they  come ;  see  how  they  gather  I 
"Wide  waves  the  eagle  plume  blended  with  heather. 
Cast  your  plaids,  draw  your  blades,  forward  each  man  set  I 
Pibroch  of  Donuil  Dhu,  knell  for  the  onset  I 


percy  bysshe  shelley. 

Lines  to  an  Indian  Aie. 

I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee 
In  the  first  sweet  sleep  of  night, 

"When  the  winds  are  breathing  low 
And  the  stars  are  ihining  bright. 


278  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee, 
And  a  spirit  in  my  feet 

Has  led  me — who  knows  how  ? —  ' 
To  thy  chamber-window,  sweet. 

The  wandering  airs  they  faint 
On  the  dark,  tlie  silent  stream ; 

The  champak  odours  fail 
Like  sweet  thoughts  in  a  dream ; 

The  nightingale's  complaint, 
It  dies  upon  her  heart, 

As  I  must  die  on  thine, 

0  belovM  as  thou  art  I 

0  lift  me  from  the  grass  I 

1  die,  I  faint,  I  fail  I 
Let  thy  love  in  kisses  rain 

On  my  lips  and  eyelids  pale. 
My  cheek  is  cold  and  white,  alas  I 
My  heartbeats  loud  and  fast: 

0 1  press  it  close  to  thine  again, 
Where  it  will  break  at  last. 

"Venice. 
(From  lAnes  Written  in  the  Eiiganean  Hill*.'] 
Sun-girt  city,  thou  hast  been 
Ocean's  child,  and  then  his  queen; 
Now  is  come  a  darker  day 
And  thou  soon  must  be  his  prey, 
If  the  power  that  raised  thee  here 
Hallow  so  thy  watery  bier. 
A  less  drear  ruin  then  than  now, 
With  thy  conquest-branded  brow 
Stooping  to  the  slave  of  slaves 
From  thy  throne  among  the  waves, 
Wilt  thou  be,  when  the  sea-mew 
Flies,  as  once  before  it  flew, 
O'er  thine  isles  depopulate, 
And  all  is  in  its  ancient  state ; 
Save  where  many  a  palace  gate 
With  green  sea-flowers  overgrown. 
Like  a  rock  of  ocean's  own 


Percy  Bysshk  Shelley.  279 

Topples  o'er  the  abandoned  sea 
As  the  tides  change  sullenly. 
The  fisher  on  his  watery  way 
Wandering  at  the  close  of  day, 
"Will  spread  his  sail  and  seize  his  oar 
Till  he  pass  the  gloomy  shore, 
Lest  thy  dead  should,  from  their  sleep 
Bursting  o'er  the  starlight  deep, 
Lead  a  rapid  masque  of  death 
O'er  the  waters  of  his  path. 


A  Lament. 

0  world  I  0  life!  0  timet 
On  whose  last  steps  I  climb, 

Trembling  at  that  where  I  had  stood  before. 
When  will  return  the  glory  of  your  prime  ? 

No  more — 0,  never  more  I 

Out  of  the  day  and  night 
A  joy  has  taken  flight ; 

Fresh  spring  and  summer  and  winter  lioar 
Move  my  faint  heart  with  grief,  but  with  delight 

No  more — 0,  never  more  I 

The  Poet's  Dream. 

[From  Prometheus  Utibound.^ 

On  a  poet's  lips  I  slept 
Dreaming  like  a  love-adept 
In  the  sound  his  breathing  kept. 
Nor  seeks  nor  finds  he  mortal  blisses. 
But  feeds  on  the  aerial  kisses 
Of  shapes  that  haunt  thought's  wildernesses. 
He  will  watch  from  dawn  to  gloom 
The  lake-reflected  sun  illume 
The  yellow  bees  in  the  ivy  bloom, 
Nor  heed  nor  see  what  things  they  be ; 
But  from  these  create  he  can 
Forms  more  real  than  living  man. 
Nurslings  of  immortality. 


280        From  Chauceb  to  Tennyson. 

george  gordon  byron. 

Elegy  on  Thyrza. 

JLnd  thou  art  dead,  as  young  and  fair 

As  aught  of  mortal  birth  ; 
And  form  so  soft  and  charms  so  rare, 

Too  soon  returned  to  earth: 
Though  earth  received  them  in  her  bed, 
And  o'er  the  spot  the  crowd  may  tread 

In  carelessness  or  mirth, 
There  is  an  eye  which  could  not  brook 
A  moment  on  that  grave  to  look. 

I  will  not  ask  where  thou  liest  low 

Nor  gaze  upon  the  spot ; 
There  flowers  or  weeds  at  will  may  grow, 

So  I  behold  them  not: 
It  is  enough  for  me  to  prove 
That  what  I  loved  and  long  must  love 

Like  common  earth  can  rot ; 
To  me  there  needs  no  stone  to  tell 
'Tis  nothing  that  I  loved  so  well. 

Tet  did  I  love  thee  to  the  last 

As  fervently  as  thou, 
Wlio  didst  not  change  through  all  the  past 

And  canst  not  alter  now. 
The  love  where  death  has  set  his  seal 
Nor  age  can  chill,  nor  rival  steal, 

Nor  falsehood  disavow: 
And,  what  were  worse,  thou  canst  not  see 
Or  wrong,  or  change,  or  fault  in  me. 

The  better  days  of  life  were  ours ; 

The  worst  can  be  but  mine : 
The  sun  that  cheers,  the  storm  that  lowers, 

Shall  never  more  be  thine. 
The  silence  of  that  dreamless  sleep 
I  envy  now  too  much  to  weep. 

Nor  need  I  to  repine 
That  all  those  charms  have  passed  away, 
I  might  have  watched  through  long  decay. 


Geoege  Goedon  Byeon.  281 

The  flower  in  ripened  bloom  unmatched 

Must  fall  the  earliest  prey ; 
Though  by  no  hand  untimely  snatched, 

The  leaves  must  drop  away : 
And  yet  it  were  a  greater  grief 
To  watch  it  withering  leaf  by  leaf, 

Than  see  it  plucked  to-day ; 
Since  earthly  eye  but  ill  can  bear 
To  trace  the  change  to  foul  from  fidr. 


I  know  not  if  I  could  have  borne 

To  see  thy  beauties  fade ; 
The  night  that  followed  such  a  mora 

Had  worn  a  deeper  shade : 
Thy  day  without  a  cloud  hath  past, 
And  thou  wert  lovely  to  the  last, 

Extinguished,  not  decayed ; 
As  stars  that  shoot  along  the  sky 
Shine  brightest  as  they  fall  from  high. 


As  once  I  wept,  if  I  could  weep, 

My  tears  might  well  be  shed. 
To  think  I  was  not  near  to  keep 

One  vigil  o'er  thy  bed ; 
To  gaze,  how  fondly  1  on  thy  face, 
To  fold  thee  in  a  faint  embrace, 

Uphold  thy  drooping  head ; 
And  show  that  love,  however  vain, 
Nor  thou  nor  I  can  feel  again. 


Tet  how  much  less  it  were  to  gain. 

Though  thou  hast  left  me  free, 
The  loveliest  things  that  still  remain, 

Than  thus  remember  thee ! 
The  all  of  thine  that  cannot  die 
Through  dark  and  dread  Eternity, 

Returns  again  to  me, 
And  more  thy  buried  love  endears 
Than  aught,  except  its  living  years. 


282  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

The  Ball  at  Brussels  on  the  Night  before  Waterloo. 

[From  GiUde  Harold.'] 

There  was  a  sound  of  revelry  hj  night, 

And  Belgium's  capital  had  gathered  there 

Her  beauty  and  her  chivalry,  and  bright 

The  lamps  shone  o'er  fair  women  and  brave  men : 

A  thousand  hearts  beat  happily ;  and  wlien 

Music  arose  with  its  voluptuous  swell, 

Soft  eyes  looked  love  to  eyes  which  spake  again, 

And  all  went  merry  as  a  marriage-bell ; 

But  hush  I  hark  I  a  deep  sound  strikes  like  a  rising  knell ! 

Did  ye  not  hear  it?    No;  'twas  but  the  wind, 

Or  the  car  rattling  o'er  the  stony  street. 

On  with  the  dance  I  let  joy  be  unconfined  I 

No  sleep  till  morn  when  youth  and  pleasure  meet 

To  chase  the  glowing  hours  with  flying  feet — 

But  hark !  that  heavy  sound  breaks  in  once  more, 

As  if  the  clouds  its  echo  would  repeat ; 

And  nearer,  clearer,  deadlier  than  before  1 

Arm!  arm  I  it  is — it  is — the  cannon's  opening  roar  I  .  .  . 

Ah !  then  and  there  was  hurrying  to  and  fro, 

And  gathering  tears,  and  tremblings  of  distress, 

And  cheeks  all  pale  which  but  an  hour  ago 

Blushed  at  the  praise  of  their  own  loveliness ; 

And  there  were  sudden  partings,  such  as  press 

The  life  from  out  young  hearts,  and  choking  sighs 

Which  ne'er  might  be  repeated:  who  could  guess 

If  evermore  should  meet  those  mutual  eyes. 

Since  upon  night  so  sweet  such  awful  mom  could  rise  ? 

"  And  there  was  mountiug  in  hot  haste :  the  steed. 
The  mustering  squadron,  and  the  clattering  car 
Went  pouring  forward  with  impetuous  speed, 
And  swiftly  forming  in  the  ranks  of  war ; 
And  the  deep  thiuider  peal  on  peal  afar ; 


Geoege  Gordon  Byeon.  288 

And  near,  the  beat  of  the  alarming  drum 

Roused  up  the  soldier  ere  the  morning  star; 

"While  thronged  the  citizens  with  terror  dumb, 

Or  whispering,  with  white  lips,  "  The  foe  I  They  come !  they  come  1" 

And  wild  and  high  the  "  Cameron's  gathering  "  rose, 

The  war-note  of  Lochiel,  which  Albyn's  hiUs 

Have  heard,  and  heard,  too,  have  her  Saxon  foes: 

How  in  the  noon  of  night  that  pibroch  thrills, 

Savage  and  shrill  1     But  with  the  breath  which  fills 

Their  mountain  pipe,  so  fill  the  mountaineers 

With  the  fierce  native  daring  which  instils 

The  stirring  memory  of  a  thousand  years; 

And  Evan's,  Donald's  fame  rings  in  each  clansman's  ears. 

And  Ardennes  waves  above  them  her  green  leaves, 

Dewy  with  nature's  tear-drops,  as  they  pass, 

Grieving,  if  aught  inanimate  e'er  grieves. 

Over  the  unretuming  brave — alas  1 

Ere  evening  to  be  trodden  like  the  grass 

Which  now  beneath  them,  but  above  shall  grow, 

In  its  next  verdure,  when  this  fiery  mass 

Of  living  valor  rolling  on  the  foe. 

And  burning  with  high  hope,  shall  moulder  cold  and  low. 


john  keats. 

Ode  ok  a  Geecian  Uen. 

Thou  still  unravisbed  bride  of  quietness  I 

Thou  foster-child  of  Silence  and  slow  Time, 
Sylvan  historian,  who  canst  thus  express 

A  flowery  tale  more  sweetly  than  our  rhyme ; 
What  leaf-fringed  legend  haunts  about  thy  shape 

Of  deities  or  mortals,  or  of  both. 
In  Tempe  or  the  dales  of  Arcady  ? 

What  men  or  gods  are  these?    What  maidens  loath? 
What  mad  pursuit?    What  struggle  to  escape  ? 

What  pipes  and  timbrels  ?    What  wild  ecstasy  ? 


284        Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Heard  melodies  are  sweet;  but  those  unheard 

Are  sweeter;  therefore,  ye  soft  pipes,  play  on; 
Not  to  the  sensual  ear,  but,  more  endeared, 

Pipe  to  the  spirit  ditties  of  no  tone : 
Fair  youth  beneath  the  trees,  thou  canst  not  leave 

Thy  song,  nor  ever  can  those  trees  be  bare ; 
Bold  lover,  never,  never  canst  thou  kiss, 
Though  winning  near  the  goal — ^yet  do  not  grievie  : 
She  cannot  fade  though  thou  hast  not  thy  bliss, 

Forever  wilt  thou  love,  and  she  be  fair  1 

Ah,  happy,  happy  boughs  I  that  cannot  shed 

Tour  leaves,  nor  ever  bid  the  Spring  adieu ; 
And  happy  melodist,  unwearied 

Forever  piping  songs  forever  new ; 
More  happy  love  I  more  happy,  happy  love  I 

Forever  warm  and  still  to  be  enjoyed. 

Forever  panting  and  forever  young; 

All  breathing  human  passion  far  above. 

That  leaves  a  heart  high  sorrowful  and  cloyed, 
A  burning  forehead,  and  a  parching  tongue. 

Who  are  these  coming  to  the  sacrifice  ? 

To  what  green  altar,  0  mysterious  priest, 
Lead'st  thou  that  heifer  lowing  at  the  skies, 

And  all  her  silken  flanks  with  garlands  drest  ? 
"What  little  town  by  river  or  sea-shore. 

Or  mountain  built  with  peaceful  citadel, 
Is  emptied  of  its  folk  this  pious  morn  ? 
Ah  1  little  town,  thy  streets  forever  more 

Will  silent  be;  and  not  a  soul  to  tell 
Why  thou  art  desolate  can  e'er  return. 

0  Attic  shape  I  Fair  attitude  I  with  brede 

Of  marble  men  and  maidens  overwrought, 
With  forest  branches  and  the  trodden  weed ; 

Thou,  silent  form,  dost  tease  us  out  of  thought 
As  doth  eternity :  Cold  Pastoral ! 

When  old  age  shall  this  generation  waste. 
Thou  shalt  remain,  in  midst  of  other  woe 

Than  ours,  a  friend  to  man,  to  whom  thou  say'st, 
"  Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty  " — that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know. 


John   Keats.  285 

Madeline. 

[From  The  Eve  of  St.  Aone8.1 
Out  went  the  taper  as  she  hurried  in ; 
Its  little  smoke  in  pallid  moonshine  died ; 
She  closed  the  door,  she  panted,  all  akin 
To  spirits  of  the  air  and  visions  wide ; 
No  uttered  syllable,  or,  woe  betide  ! 
But  to  her  heart  her  heart  was  voluble. 
Paining  with  eloquence  her  balmy  side ; 
As  though  a  tongueless  nightingale  should  swell 
Her  throat  in  vain,  and  die,  heart-atifled  in  her  dell. 

A  casement  high  and  triple-arched  there  was, 

All  garlanded  \vith  carven  imageries 

Of  fruits  and  flowers  and  bunches  of  knot-grass, 

And  diamonded  with  panes  of  quaint  device, 

Innumerable  of  stains  and  splendid  dyes 

As  are  the  tiger-moth's  deep-damasked  wings ; 

And  in  the  midst,  'mong  thousand  heraldries. 

And  twilight  saints,  and  dim  emblazouings, 

A  shielded  scutcheon  blushed  with  blood  of  queens  and  kings. 

Full  on  this  casement  shone  the  wintry  moon. 

And  threw  warm  gules  on  Madeline's  fair  breast, 

As  down  she  knelt  for  heaven's  grace  and  boon ; 

Eose-bloom  fell  on  her  hands,  together  pressed, 

And  on  her  silver  cross  soft  amethyst, 

And  on  her  hair  a  glory,  like  a  saint : 

She  seemed  a  splendid  angel,  newly  dressed, 

Save  wings,  for  heaven :  Porphyro  grew  faint : 

She  knelt,  so  pure  a  thing,  so  free  from  mortal  taint. 


CHARLES  DICKENS. 

Bob  Sawyer's  Bachelor  Party. 

[From  Pickwick  Papers.] 
After  supper  another  jug  of  punch  was  put  on  the  table,  together  with  a 
paper  of  cigars  and  a  couple  of  bottles  of  spirits.  Then  there  was  an 
awful  pause;  and  this  awful  pause  was  occasioned  by  a  very  common  oc- 
currence in  this  sort  of  places,  but  a  very  embarrassing  one,  notwith- 
gtandiug. 


286  From  Chaucer  to  Teitntson. 

The  fact  is  that  the  girl  was  washing  the  glasses.  The  establishment 
boasted  four ;  we  do  not  record  this  circumstance  as  at  all  derogatory  to 
Mrs.  Raddle,  for  there  was  never  a  lodging-house  yet  that  was  not  short  of 
glasses.  The  landlady's  glasses  were  little  thin  blown-glass  tumblers,  and 
those  which  had  been  borrowed  from  the  public-house  were  great,  dropsic- 
al, bloated  articles,  each  supported  on  a  huge  gouty  leg.  This  would  have 
been  in  itself  sufBcient  to  have  possessed  the  company  with  the  real  state 
of  affairs ;  but  the  young  woman  of  all  work  had  prevented  the  possibility 
of  any  misconception  arising  in  the  mind  of  any  gentleman  upon  the  sub- 
ject, by  forcibly  dragging  every  man's  glass  away  long  before  he  had  fin- 
ished his  beer,  and  audibly  stating,  despite  the  winks  and  interruptions  of 
Mr.  Bob  Sawyer,  that  it  was  to  be  conveyed  down-stairs  and  washed  forth- 
with. .  .  . 

The  sight  of  the  tumblers  restored  Bob  Sawyer  to  a  degree  of  equa- 
nimity which  he  had  not  possessed  since  his  interview  with  his  landlady. 
His  face  brightened  up,  and  he  began  to  feel  quite  convivial. 

"Now,  Betsy,"  said  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer,  with  great  suavity,  and  dispersing, 
at  the  same  time,  the  tumultuous  little  mob  of  glasses  that  the  girl  had  col- 
lected in  the  center  of  the  table;  "  Now,  Betsy,  the  warm  water;  be  brisk, 
there's  a  good  girl." 

"  You  can't  have  no  warm  water,"  replied  Betsy. 

"No  warm  water!  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer. 

"  No,"  said  the  girl,  with  a  shake  of  the  head  which  expressed  a  more 
decided  negative  than  the  most  copious  language  could  have  conveyed. 
"  Missis  Raddle  said  you  wasn't  to  have  none." 

The  surprise  depicted  on  the  countenances  of  his  guests  imparted  new 
courage  to  tlie  host. 

"Bring  up  the  warm  water  instantly — instantly!  "  said  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer, 
with  desperate  sternness. 

"  No ;  I  can't,"  replied  the  girl.  "  Missis  Raddle  raked  out  the  kitchen 
fire  afore  she  went  to  bed,  and  locked  up  the  kettle." 

"  0,  never  mind,  never  mind.  Pray  don't  disturb  yourself  about  such  a 
trifle,"  said  Mr.  Pickwick,  observing  the  conflict  of  Bob  Sawyer's  passions, 
as  depicted  on  his  countenance,  "cold  water  will  do  very  well." 

"  0,  admirably,"  said  Mr.  Benjamin  Allen. 

"  My  landlady  is  subject  to  slight  attacks  of  mental  derangement,"  remarked 
Bob  Sawyer,  with  a  ghastly  smile ;  "  I  fear  I  must  give  her  warning." 

"  No,  don't,"  said  Ben  Allen. 

"  I  fear  I  must,"  said  Bob,  with  heroic  firmness.  "  I'll  pay  her  what  I 
owe  her  and  give  her  warning  to-morrow  morning." 

Poor  fellow!  How  devoutly  he  wished  he  could!  ...  It  was  at  the 
end  of  the  chorus  to  the  first  verse  that  Mr.  Pickwick  held  up  his  hand  in 


Charles  Dickens.  287 

a  listening  attitude,  and  said,  as  soon  as  silence  was  restored,  "Hush  !  I 
beg  your  pardon.     I  thought  I  heard  somebody  calling  from  up-stairs." 

A  profound  silence  immediately  ensued,  and  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer  was  ob- 
served to  turn  pale. 

"  I  think  I  hear  it  now,"  said  Mr.  Pickwick.  "  Have  the  goodness  to 
open  the  door." 

The  door  was  no  sooner  opened  than  all  doubt  on  the  subject  was 
removed. 

"  Mr.  Sawyer — Mr.  Sawyer,"  screamed  a  voice  from  the  two-pair  landing. 

"It's  my  landlady,"  said  Bob  Sawyer,  looking  round  him  with  great  dis- 
may.    "Yes,  Mrs.  Raddle." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  this,  Mr.  Sawyer  ?  "  replied  the  voice,  with  great 
shrillness  and  rapidity  of  utterance.  "  'Aint  it  enough  to  be  swindled  out 
of  one's  rent,  and  money  lent  out  of  pocket  besides,  and  abused  and  insulted 
by  your  friends  that  dares  to  call  themselves  men,  without  having  the  house 
turned  out  of  window,  and  noise  enough  made  to  bring  the  fire-engines  here 
at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  ?     Turn  them  wretches  away." 

"  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourselves,"  said  the  voice  of  Mr.  Raddle, 
which  appeared  to  proceed  from  beneath  some  distant  bed-clothes. 

"  Ashamed  of  themselves  I  "  said  Mrs.  Raddle.  "  Why  don't  you  go  down 
and  knock  'em  every  one  down-stairs  ?     You  would,  if  you  was  a  man." 

"  I  should  if  I  was  a  dozen  men,  my  dear,"  replied  Mr.  Raddle,  pacific- 
ally; "but  they've  rather  the  advantage  of  me  in  numbers,  my  dear." 

"Ugh,  you  coward!"  replied  Mrs.  Raddle,  with  supreme  contempt.  ^^Do 
you  mean  to  turn  them  wretches  out,  or  not,  Mr.  Sawyer?  " 

"  They're  going,  Mrs.  Raddle,  they're  going,"  said  the  miserable  Bob. 
"I'm  afraid  you'd  better  go,"  said  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer  to  his  friends.  "I 
thought  you  were  making  too  much  noise." 

"  It's  a  very  unfortunate  thing,"  said  the  prim  man.  "Just  as  we  were 
getting  so  comfortable,  too."  The  fact  was  that  the  prim  man  was  just 
beginning  to  have  a  dawning  recollection  of  the  story  he  had  forgotten. 

"It's  hardly  to  be  borne,"  said  the  prim  man,  looking  round;  "hardly 
to  be  borne,  is  it  ?  " 

"Not  to  be  endured,"  replied  Jack  Hopkins;  "let's  have  the  other 
verse.  Bob ;  come,  here  goes." 

"  Xo,  no,  Jack,  don't,"  interposed  Bob  Sawyer;  "  it's  a  capital  song,  but 
I  am  afraid  we  had  better  not  have  the  other  verse.  They  are  very  violent 
people,  the  people  of  the  house." 

"  Shall  I  step  up-stairs  and  pitch  into  the  landlord  ?  "  inquired  Hopkins, 
"or  keep  on  ringing  the  bell,  or  go  and  groan  on  the  staircase ?  You  may 
command  me,  Bob." 

"  I  am  very  much  indebted  to  you  for  your  friendship  and  good-nature, 


288  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Hopkins,"  said  the  wretched  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer,  "  but  I  am  of  opinion  that 
the  best  plan  to  avoid  any  farther  dispute  is  for  us  to  brealc  up  at  once." 

"Now,  Mr.  Sawyer,"  screamed  the  shrill  voice  of  Mrs.  Raddle,  "are 
them  brutes  going?  " 

"  They're  only  looking  for  their  hats,  Mrs.  Raddle,"  said  Bob ;  "  they  are 
going  directly." 

"  Going !  "  said  Mrs.  Raddle,  thrusting  her  night-cap  over  the  banuisters, 
just  as  Mr.  Pickwick,  followed  by  Mr.  Tupman,  emerged  from  the  sitting- 
room.     "  Going  1     What  did  they  ever  come  for." 

"  My  dear  ma'am,"  remonstrated  Mr.  Pickwick,  looking  up. 

"  Get  along  with  you,  you  old  wretch  I "  replied  Mrs.  Raddle,  hastily 
withdrawing  her  night-cap.  "Old  enough  to  be  his  grandfather,  you 
villain  I     You're  worse  than  any  of  'era." 

Mr.  Pickwick  found  it  in  vain  to  protest  his  innocence,  so  hurried  down- 
stairs into  the  street,  whither  he  was  closely  followed  by  Mr.  Tupman, 
Mr.  "Winkle,  and  Mr.  Snodgrass. 


william  makepiece  thackeray, 

Becky  Goes  to  Court  and  Dines  at  Gaunt  House. 
[From  Vanity  Fair.] 

The  particulars  of  Becky's  costume  were  in  the  newspapers — feathers, 
lappets,  superb  diamonds,  and  all  the  rest.  Lady  Crackenbury  read  the 
paragraph  in  bitterness  of  spirit,  and  discoursed  to  her  followers  about  the 
airs  which  that  woman  was  giving  herself.  Mrs.  Bute  Crawley  and  her  young 
ladies  in  the  country  liad  a  copy  of  the  Morning  Post  from  town,  and  gave  a 
vent  to  their  honest  indignation.  "  If  you  had  been  sandy- haired,  green-eyed, 
and  a  French  rope-dancer's  daughter,"  Mrs.  Bute  said  to  her  eldest  girl 
(who,  on  the  contrary,  was  a  very  swarthy,  short,  and  snub-nosed  young 
lady),  "  you  might  have  had  superb  diamonds,  forsooth,  and  have  been  pre- 
sented at  court  by  your  cousin,  the  Lady  Jane.  But  you're  only  a  gentle- 
woman, my  poor  dear  child.  You  have  only  some  of  the  best  blood  in  En- 
gland in  your  veins,  and  good  principles  and  piety  for  your  portion.  I 
myself,  the  wife  of  a  baronet's  younger  brother,  too,  never  thouglit  of  such 
a  thing  as  going  to  court — nor  would  other  people  if  good  Queen  Charlotte 
had  been  alive."  In  this  way  the  worthy  rectoress  consoled  herself;  and 
her  daughters  sighed,  and  sat  over  the  Peerage  all  night.  .  .  . 

When  the  ladies  of  Gaunt  House  were  at  breakfast  that  morning  Lord 
Steyne  (who  took  his  chocolate  in  private,  and  seldom  disturbed  the  females 
of  Ms  household,  or  saw  them  except  upon  public  days,  or  when  they  crossed 


William  Makepiece  Thackebay.  289 

each  other  in  the  hall,  or  when  from  his  pit-box  at  the  opera  he  surveyed 
them  in  their  box  in  the  grand  tier) — his  lordship,  we  say,  appeared  among 
the  ladies  and  the  children,  who  were  assembled  over  the  tea  and  toast,  and 
a  battle  royal  ensued  apropos  of  Rebecca. 

"  My  Lady  Steyne,"  he  said,  "  I  want  to  see  the  list  for  your  dinner  on 
Friday ;  and  I  want  you,  if  you  please,  to  write  a  card  for  Colonel  and 
Mrs.  Crawley." 

"Blanche  writes  them,"  Lady  Steyne  said,  in  a  flutter.  "  Lady  Graunt 
writes  them." 

"  I  will  not  write  to  that  person,"  Lady  Gaunt  said,  a  tall  and  stately  lady, 
who  looked  up  for  an  instant  and  then  down  again  after  she  had  spoken.  It 
was  not  good  to  meet  Lord  Steyne's  eyes  for  those  who  had  oflTended  him. 

"Send  the  children  out  of  the  room.  Gol  "  said  he,  pulling  at  the  bell- 
rope.  The  urchins,  always  frightened  before  him,  retired;  their  mother 
would  have  followed  too.     "Not  you."  he  said.     "You  stop." 

"  My  Lady  Steyne,"  he  said,  "once  more,  will  you  have  the  goodness  to  go 
to  the  desk  and  write  that  card  for  your  dinner  on  Friday  ?  " 

"  My  Lord,  I  will  not  be  present  at  it,"  Lady  Gaunt  said ;  "  I  will  go  home." 

"I  wish  you  would,  and  stay  there.  You  will  find  the  baihlEs  at  Bare- 
acres  very  pleasant  company ;  and  I  shall  be  freed  from  lending  money  to 
your  relations,  and  from  your  own  damned  tragedy  airs.  "Who  are  you,  to 
give  orders  here  ?  You  have  no  money.  You've  got  no  brains.  You  were 
here  to  have  children,  and  you  have  not  had  any.  Gaunt's  tired  of  you; 
and  George's  wife  is  the  only  person  in  the  family  who  doesn't  wish  you 
were  dead.     Gaunt  would  marry  again  if  you  were." 

"  I  wish  I  were,"  her  ladyship  answered,  with  tears  and  rage  in  her  eyes. 

"You,  forsooth,  must  give  yourself  airs  of  virtue;  while  my  wife,  who  is 
an  immaculate  saint,  as  every  body  knows,  and  never  did  wrong  in  her  life, 
has  no  objection  to  meet  my  young  friend,  Mrs.  Crawley.  My  Lady  Steyne 
knows  that  appearances  are  sometimes  against  the  best  of  women ;  that  lies 
are  often  told  about  the  most  innocent  of  them.  Pray,  madam,  shall  I  tell 
you  some  little  anecdotes  about  my  Lady  Bareacres,  your  mamma  ?  " 

"  You  may  strike  me  if  you  like,  sir,  or  hit  any  cruel  blow,"  Lady  Gaunt 
said.  To  see  his  wife  and  daughter  suffering  always  put  his  lordship  into  a 
good  humor. 

"  My  sweet  Blanche,'"  he  said,  "  I  am  a  gentleman,  and  never  lay  my 
hand  upon  a  woman,  save  in  the  way  of  kindnesss.  I  only  wish  to  correct 
little  faults  in  your  character.  You  women  are  too  proud,  and  sadly  lack 
humility,  as  Father  Mole,  I'm  sure,  would  tell  my  Lady  Steyne  if  he  were 
here.  You  musn't  give  yourselves  airs:  you  must  be  meek  and  humble, 
my  blessings.  For  all  Lady  Steyne  knows,  this  calumniated,  simple,  good- 
humored  Mrs.  Crawley  is  quite  innocent — even  more  innocent  than  liereelt 


290  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tknxyson. 

Her  husband's  character  is  not  good,  but  it  is  as  good  as  Bareacres's,  who  has 
played  a  little  and  not  payed  a  great  deal,  who  cheated  you  out  of  the  only 
legacy  you  ever  had,  and  left  you  a  pauper  on  my  hands.  And  Mrs.  Crawley 
is  not  very  well  bom ;  but  she  is  not  worse  than  Fanny's  illustrious  ancestor, 
the  first  de  la  Jones." 

"  The  money  which  I  brought  into  the  family,  sir,"  Lady  George  cried  out — 
"  Tou  purchased  a  contingent  reversion  with  it,"  the  marquis  said,  darkly. 
"  If  Gaunt  dies,  your  husband  may  come  to  his  honors ;  your  little  boys  may 
inherit  them,  and  who  knows  what  besides  ?  In  the  meanwhile,  ladies,  be  as 
proud  and  virtuous  as  you  like  abroad,  but  don't  give  me  any  airs.  As  for  Mrs. 
Crawley's  character,  I  sha'n't  demean  myself  or  that  most  spotless  and  per- 
fectly irreproachable  lady,  by  even  hinting  that  it  even  requires  a  defense. 
You  will  bo  pleased  to  receive  her  with  the  utmost  cordiality,  as  you  will 
receive  all  persons  whom  I  present  in  this  house.  This  house  ?  "  He  broke 
out  with  a  laugh.  "  Who  is  the  master  of  it,  and  what  is  it  ?  This  temple 
of  virtue  belongs  to  me.     And  if  I  invite  all  Newgate  or  all  Bedlam  here, 

by they  shall  be  welcome." 

After  this  vigorous  allocution,  to  one  of  which  sort  Lord  Steyne  treated  his 
"  Hareem  "  whenever  symptoms  of  insubordination  appeared  in  his  house- 
hold, the  crestfallen  women  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  obey.  Lady  Gaunt 
wrote  the  invitation  which  his  lordship  required,  and  she  and  her  mother- 
in-law  drove  in  person,  and  with  bitter  and  humiliated  hearts,  to  leave  the 
cards  on  Mrs.  Rawdon,  the  reception  of  which  caused  that  innocent  woman 
so  much  pleasure. 


george  eliot. 
Passages  From  Adam  Bede. 

It  was  a  wood  of  beeches  and  limes,  with  here  and  there  a  light,  silver- 
stemmed  birch — ^just  the  sort  of  wood  most  haunted  by  the  nymphs;  you 
see  their  white  sun-lit  limbs  gleaming  athwart  the  boughs  or  peeping  from 
behind  the  smooth-sweeping  outline  of  a  tall  lime;  you  hear  their  soft 
liquid  laughter — but  if  you  look  with  a  too  curious  sacrilegious  eye  they 
vanish  behind  the  silvery  beeches,  they  make  you  believe  that  their  voice 
was  only  a  running  brooklet,  perhaps  they  metamorphose  themselves  into  a 
tawny  squirrel  that  scampers  away  and  mocks  you  from  the  topmost  bough. 
Not  a  grove  with  measured  grass  or  rolled  gravel  for  you  to  tread  upon,  but 
with  narrow,  hollow-shaped  eartliy  paths,  edged  with  faint  dashes  of  delicate 
moss — paths  which  look  as  if  they  were  made  by  the  free  will  of  the  trees 
and  underwood,  moving  reverently  aside  to  look  at  the  tall  queen  of  the 
white-footed  nymphs. 


.  Gbosge  Eliot.  291 

There  are  various  orders  of  beauty,  causing  men  to  make  fools  of  them- 
selves in  various  styles,  from  the  desperate  to  the  sheepish ;  but  there  is 
one  order  of  beauty  which  seems  made  to  turn  the  heads  not  only  of  men, 
but  of  all  intelligent  mammals,  even  of  women.  It  is  a  beauty  like  that  of 
kittens,  or  very  small  downy  ducks  making  gentle  rippling  noises  with  their 
soft  bills,  or  babies  just  beginning  to  toddle  and  to  engage  in  conscious 
mischief — a  beauty  with  which  you  can  never  be  angry,  but  that  you  feel 
ready  to  crush  for  inability  to  comprehend  the  state  of  mind  into  which  it 
throws  you.  ...  It  is  of  little  use  for  me  to  tell  you  that  Hetty's  cheek  was 
like  a  rose-petal,  that  dimples  played  about  her  pouting  lips,  that  her  large 
dark  eyes  hid  a  soft  roguishness  under  their  long  lashes,  and  that  her  curly 
hair,  though  all  pushed  back  under  her  round  cap  while  she  was  at  work, 
stole  back  in  dark  delicate  rings  on  her  forehead,  and  about  her  white  shell- 
like ears ;  it  is  of  little  use  for  me  to  say  how  lovely  was  the  contour  of  her  pink- 
and-white  neckerchief,  tucked  into  her  low  plum-colored  stuflf  bodice,  or  how 
the  linen  butter-making  aprou,  with  its  bib,  seemed  a  thing  to  be  imitated  in 
silk  by  duchesses,  since  it  fell  in  such  charming  lines,  or  how  her  brown 
stockings  and  thick-soled  buckled  shoes  lost  all  that  clumsiness  which  they 
must  certainly  have  had  when  empty  of  her  foot  and  ankle — of  little  use  un- 
less you  have  seen  a  woman  who  affected  you  as  Hetty  affected  her  behold- 
ers, for  otherwise,  though  you  might  conjure  up  the  image  of  a  lovely 
woman,  she  would  not  in  the  least  resemble  that  distracting  kitten-like 
maiden.  I  might  mention  all  the  divine  charms  of  a  bright  spring  day,  but 
if  you  had  never  in  your  life  utterly  forgotten  yourself  in  straining  your  eyes 
after  the  mounting  lark,  or  in  wandering  through  the  still  lanes  when  the 
fresh-opened  blossoms  fill  them  with  a  sacred,  silent  beauty  like  that  of 
fretted  aisles,  where  would  be  the  use  of  my  descriptive  catalogue  ?  I  could 
never  make  you  know  what  I  meant  by  a  bright  spring  day.  Hetty's  was  a 
spring-tide  beauty ;  it  was  the  beauty  of  young  frisking  things,  round-limbed, 
gambolling,  circumventing  you  by  a  false  air  of  innocence — the  innocence 
of  a  young  star-browed  calf,  for  example,  that,  being  inclined  for  a  prome- 
nade out  of  bounds,  leads  you  a  severe  steeple-chase  over  hedge  and  ditch, 
and  only  comes  to  a  stand  in  the  middle  of  a  bog. 

Family  likeness  has  often  a  deep  sadness  in  it.  Nature,  that  great  tragic 
dramatist,  knits  us  together  by  bone  and  muscle,  and  divides  us  by  the 
subtler  web  of  our  brains;  blends  yearning  and  repulsion,  and  ties  us  by  our 
heart-strings  to  the  beings  that  jar  us  at  every  movement.  We  hear  a  voice 
with  the  very  cadence  of  our  own  uttering  the  thoughts  we  despise ;  we  see 
eyes — ahl  so  like  our  mother's — averted  from  us  in  cold  alienation ;  and  our 
last  darling  child  startles  us  with  the  air  and  gestures  of  the  sister  we  parted 
from  in  bitterness  long  years  ago.     The  father  to  whom  we  owe  our  best 


292  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

heritage — the  meohanical  instinct,  the  keen  sensibility  to  harmony,  the  un- 
conscious skill  of  the  modeling  hand — galls  us,  and  puts  us  to  shame  by 
his  daily  errors.  The  long-lost  mother,  whose  face  we  begin  to  see  in  the 
glass  as  our  own  wrinkles  come,  once  fretted  our  young  souls  with  her 
anxious  humors  and  irrational  persistence. 

It  was  to  Adam  the  time  that  a  man  can  least  forget  in  after  life— the 
time  when  he  believes  that  the  first  woman  he  has  ever  loved  betrays  by  a 
slight  something — a  word,  a  tone,  a  glance,  the  quivering  of  a  lip  or  an  eye- 
lid— that  she  is  at  least  beginning  to  love  him  in  return.  ...  So  unless  our 
early  gladness  vanishes  utterly  from  our  memory,  we  can  never  recall  the 
joy  with  which  we  laid  our  heads  on  our  mother's  bosom  or  rode  on  our 
father's  back  in  childhood ;  doubtless  that  joy  is  wrought  up  into  our  nature, 
or  as  the  sunlight  of  long-past  mornings  is  wrought  up  into  the  soft  mellow- 
ness of  the  apricot;  but  it  is  gone  forever  from  our  imagination  as  we  can 
only  believe  in  the  joy  of  childhood.  But  the  first  glad  moment  in  our  first 
love  is  a  vision  which  returns  to  us  to  the  last,  and  brings  with  it  a  thrill  of 
feeling  intense  and  special  as  the  recurrent  sensation  of  a  sweet  odor 
breathed  in  a  far-ofE  hour  of  happiness.  It  is  a  memory  that  gives  a  more  ex- 
quisite touch  to  tenderness,  that  feeds  the  madness  of  jealousy,  and  adds  the 
last  keenness  to  the  agony  of  despair. 


thomas  carlyle. 
Midnight  in  the  City. 

[From  Sartor  Resartus.] 
'^Ach,meinLieber.'^^  said  he  once,  at  midnight,  when  we  had  returned 
from  the  Coffee-house  in  rather  earnest  talk,  "it  is  a  true  sublimity  to 
dwell  here.  These  fringes  of  lamp-light,  struggling  up  through  smoke  and 
thousand-fold  exhalation,  some  fathoms  into  the  ancient  reign  of  night, 
what  thinks  Bootes  of  them,  as  he  leads  his  Hunting-Dogs  over  the  Zenith  in 
their  leash  of  sidereal  fire  ?  That  stifled  hum  of  Midnight,  when  Traffic  has 
lain  down  to  rest;  and  the  chariot- wheels  of  Vanity,  still  rolling  here  and 
there  through  distant  streets,  are  bearing  her  to  Halls  roofed-in  and  lighted 
to  the  due  pitch  for  her ;  and  only  Vice  and  Misery,  to  prowl  or  to  moan 
like  night-birds,  are  abroad :  that  hum,  I  say,  like  the  stertorous,  unquiet 
slumber  of  sick  Life,  is  heard  in  Heaven  I  0,  under  that  hideous  coverlet 
of  vapours  and  putrefactions  and  unimaginable  gases,  what  a  Fermenting-vat 
lies  simmering  and  hid  1  The  joyful  and  the  sorrowful  are  there;  men  are 
dying  there,  men  arc  being  bom :  men  are  praying, — on  the  other  side  of  a 


Thomas  Cablyle.  298 

brick  partition  men  are  cursing;  and  around  them  all  is  the  vast,  void 
Night.  The  proud  Grandee  still  lingers  in  his  perfumed  saloons,  or  reposes 
within  damask  curtains  ;  "Wretchedness  cowers  into  truckle-beds,  or  shivers 
hunger-stricken  into  its  lair  of  straw:  in  obscure  cellars,  Rouge-et-Noir 
languidly  emits  its  voice-of-destiny  to  haggard,  hungry  Villains;  while 
Councillors  of  State  sit  plottiug,  and  playing  their  high  chess-game,  whereof 
the  pawns  are  Men.  The  Lover  whispers  his  mistress  that  the  coach  is 
ready;  and  she,  full  of  hope  and  fear,  glides  down  to  fly  with  him  over  the 
borders:  the  Thief,  still  more  silently,  sets-to  his  picklocks  and  crowbars,  or 
lurks  in  wait  till  the  watchmen  first  snore  in  their  boxes.  Gay  mansions, 
with  supper-rooms  and  dancing-rooms,  are  full  of  light  and  music  and  high- 
swelling  hearts;  but,  in  the  Condemned  Cells,  the  pulse  of  life  beats  tremu- 
lous and  faint,  and  blood-shot  eyes  look  out  through  the  darkness,  which  is 
around  and  within,  for  the  light  of  a  stern  last  morning.  Six  men  are  to 
be  hanged  on  the  morrow:  comes  no  hammering  from  the  Rabenstein  t— 
their  gallows  must  even  now  be  o'  building.  Upward  of  five  hundred 
thousand  two-legged  animals  without  feathers  lie  round  us  in  horizontal 
positions ;  their  heads  all  in  night-caps  and  full  of  the  foohshest  dreams. 
Kiot  cries  aloud,  and  staggers  and  swaggers  in  his  rank  dens  of  shame ;  and 
the  Mother,  with  streaming  hair,  kneels  over  her  pallid  dying  infant,  whose 
cracked  lips  only  her  tears  now  moisten. — All  these  heaped  and  huddled 
together,  with  nothing  but  a  little  carpentry  and  masonry  between  them  ; — 
crammed  in,  like  salted  fish  in  their  barrel ; — or  weltering,  shall  I  say,  like  au 
Egyptian  pitcher  of  tamed  Vipers,  each  struggling  to  get  its  head  above  the 
other:  such  work  goes  on  under  that  smoke-counterpane  I — But  I,  mein 
Werther,  sit  above  it  all ;  I  am  alone  with  the  Stars." 


Ghosts. 

[From  the  Same.] 
Again,  could  any  thing  be  more  miraculous  than  an  actual  authentic  Ghost? 
The  English  Johnson  longed,  all  his  life  to  see  one;  but  could  not,  though 
he  went  to  Cock  Lane,  and  thence  to  the  church-vaults,  and  tapped  on 
cofiBns.  Foolish  Doctor  I  Did  he  never,  with  the  mind's  eye  as  well  as  with 
the  body's,  look  around  him  into  that  full  tide  of  human  Life  he  so  loved ;  did 
he  never  so  much  as  look  into  himself?  The  good  Doctor  was  a  Ghost,  as 
actual  and  authentic  as  heart  could  wish;  well-nigh  a  million  of  Ghosts 
were  travelling  the  streets  by  his  side.  Once  more  I  say,  sweep  away  the 
illusion  of  Time ;  compress  the  threescore  years  into  three  minutes ;  what  else 
was  he,  what  else  are  we  ?  Are  we  not  Spirits,  that  are  shaped  into  a  body, 
into  an  Appearance;  and  that  fade  away  again  into  air,  and  Invisibility 7 


294  Fbom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

This  is  no  metaphor,  it  is  a  simple  scientific /ac<;  we  start  out  of  Nothing- 
ness, take  figure,  and  are  Apparitions;  round  us,  as  round  the  veriest  spec- 
tre, is  Eternity ;  and  to  Eternity  minutes  are  as  years  and  aeons.  Come  there 
not  tones  of  Love  and  Faith,  as  from  celestial  harp-strings,  like  the  Song  of 
beatified  souls  ?  And  again,  do  not  we  squeak  and  gibber  (in  our  discord- 
ant, screech-owlish  debatings  and  recriminalings) ;  and  glide  bodeful  and 
feeble  and  fearful ;  or  uproar  (poltern),  and  revel  in  our  mad  Dance  of  the 
Dead, — till  the  scent  of  the  morning-air  summons  us  to  our  still  Home ;  and 
dreamy  Night  becomes  awake  and  Day?  "Where  now  is  Alexander  of 
Macedon :  does  the  steel  Host,  that  yelled  in  fierce  battle-shouts,  at  Issus 
and  Arbela,  remain  behind  him ;  or  have  they  all  vanished  utterly,  even 
as  perturbed  Goblins  must  ?  Napoleon  too,  and  his  Moscow  Retreats  and 
Austerlitz  Campaigns  1  Was  it  all  other  than  the  veriest  Spectre-hunt; 
which  has  now,  with  its  howling  tumult  that  made  Night  hideous,  flitted 
away  ? — Ghosts  I  There  are  nigh  a  thousand  million  walking  the  Earth  openly 
at  noontide;  some  half-hundred  have  vanished  from  it,  some  half -hundred 
have  arisen  in  it,  ere  thy  watch  ticks  once.  .  .  . 

Thus,  like  some  wild-fiaming,  wild-thundering  train  of  Heaven's  Artillery, 
does  this  mysterious  Mankind  thunder  and  flame,  in  long-drawn,  quick- 
succeeding  grandeur,  through  the  unknown  Deep.  Thus,  Uke  a  God-created, 
fire-breathing  Spirit-host,  we  emerge  from  the  Inane;  haste  stormfuUy 
across  the  astonished  Earth;  then  plunge  again  into  the  Inane.  Earth's 
mountains  are  levelled,  and  her  seas  filled  up,  in  our  passage :  can  the  Earth, 
which  is  but  dead  and  a  vision,  resist  Spirits  which  have  reality  and  are 
alive  ?  On  the  hardest  adamant  some  foot-print  of  us  is  stamped  in  ;  the 
last  Rear  of  tlie  host  will  read  traces  of  the  earliest  Van.  But  whence  ? — 0 
Heaven,  whither?  Sense  knows  not;  Eaith  knows  not;  ouly  that  it  is 
through  Mystery  to  Mystery,  from  God  and  to  G^d. 

"  We  are  such  stuff 
As  Dreams  are  made  of,  and  our  little  Life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep ! " 


alfred  tennyson. 
The  Days  That  Are  no  More. 
LFrom  The  Princess.] 
Tears,  idle  tears,  I  know  not  what  they  meaa. 
Tears  from  the  depth  of  some  divine  despair 
Rise  in  the  heart  and  gatlier  to  the  eyes, 
In  looking  on  the  happy  autumn  fields, 
And  thinking  of  the  days  that  are  no  more.  .  . 


Alfeed  Tennyson.  29d 

Ah,  sad  and  strange  as  in  dark  summer  dawns 

The  earliest  pipe  of  half-awakened  birds 

To  dying  ears,  when  unto  dying  eyes 

The  easement  slowly  grows  a  glimmering  square ; 

So  sad,  so  strange,  the  days  that  are  no  more. 

Dear  as  remembered  kisses  after  death. 
And  sweet  as  those  by  hopeless  fency  feigned 
On  lips  that  are  for  others;  deep  as  love. 
Deep  as  first  love,  and  wild  with  all  regret ; 

0  death  in  life,  the  days  that  are  no  more. 

The  Passing  of  Abthue. 

[From  Morte  D'Arthur.1 

And  slowly  answered  Arthur  from  the  barge : 
"  The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new, 
And  God  fulfills  himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world. 
Comfort  thyself:  what  comfort  is  in  me  ? 

1  have  lived  my  life,  and  that  which  I  have  done 
May  He  within  himself  make  pure  I  but  thou, 

If  thou  shouldst  never  see  my  face  again, 

Pray  for  my  soul.     More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 

Than  this  world  dreams  of.     TTherefore,  let  thy  voice 

Rise  like  a  fountain  for  me  night  and  day. 

For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats 

That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 

It,  knowing  God,  they  lift  not  hands  of  prayer 

Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call  them  friend? 

For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 

Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God. 

But  now  farewell:  I  am  going  a  long  way 

With  these  thou  seest — if  indeed  I  go^ 

(For  all  my  mind  is  clouded  with  a  doubt) 

To  the  island- valley  of  Avilion ; 

Where  falls  not  hail,  or  rain,  or  any  snow, 

Nor  ever  wind  blows  loudly ;  but  it  lies 

Deep-meadow'd,  happy,  fair  with  orchard-lawns. 

And  bowery  hollows  crowned  with  summer  sea. 

Where  I  will  heal  me  of  my  grievoiis  wound." 


J296  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

So  said  he,  and  the  barge  with  oar  and  sail 
Moved  from  the  brinlc,  hke  some  full-breasted  swan 
That,  fluting  a  wild  carol  ere  her  death, 
,    Ruffles  her  pure  cold  plume,  and  takes  the  flood 
"With  swarthy  webs.     Long  stood  Sir  Bedivere 
Revolving  many  memories,  till  the  hull 
Looked  one  black  dot  against  the  verge  of  dawn, 
And  on  the  mere  the  wailing  died  away. 

Bugle  Song. 

[From  The  Princess.J 
The  splendour  falls  on  castle  walls 

And  snowy  summits  old  in  story: 
The  long  light  shakes  across  the  lakes 
And  the  wild  cataract  leaps  in  glory. 
Blow,  bugle,  blow,  set  the  wild  echoes  flying, 
Blow,  bugle;  answer,  echoes,  dying,  dying,  dying. 

0  hark,  0  hear  I  how  thin  and  clear, 

And  thinner,  clearer,  farther  going  1 
0  sweet  and  far  from  cliff  and  sear 
The  horns  of  Elf  land  faintly  blowing  I 
Blow,  let  us  hear  the  purple  glens  replying : 
Blow,  bugle ;  answer,  echoes,  dying,  dying,  dying. 

0  love,  they  die  in  yon  rich  sky, 

They  faint  on  hill  or  field  or  river  : 
Our  echoes  roll  from  soul  to  soul, 
And  grow  for  ever  and  for  ever. 
Blow,  bugle,  blow,  set  the  wild  echoes  flying. 
And  answer,  echoes,  answer,  dying,  dying,  dying. 

Break,  Break,  Break. 

Break,  break,  break 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  0  sea  I 
And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 

The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me. 

0  well  for  the  fisherman's  boy. 

That  he  shouts  with  his  sister  at  play  I 

0  well  for  the  sailor  lad, 
That  he  sings  in  his  boat  on  the  bay  I 


Alfbed  Tenkyson.  295 

And  the  stately  ships  go  on 

To  their  haven  under  the  hill ; 
But  0  for  tlie  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 

And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still  I 

Break,  break,  break 

At  the  foot  of  thy  crags,  0  sea  I 
But  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead 

Will  never  come  back  to  me. 

Peace  or  War  ? 
[From  Slaud.] 
Peace  sitting  under  her  olive,  and  slurring  the  days  gone  by, 

"When  the  poor  are  hovelled  and  hustled  together,  each  sex,  like  swine, 
When  ouly  the  ledger  lives,  and  when  only  not  all  men  lie ; 
Peace  in  her  vineyard — ^yes  I — ^but  a  company  forges  the  wine. 

And  the  vitriol  madness  flushes  up  in  the  ruflBan's  head. 
Till  the  filthy  by-lane  rings  to  the  yell  of  the  trampled  wife, 

While  chalk  and  alum  and  plaster  are  sold  to  the  poor  for  bread. 
And  the  spirit  of  murder  works  in  the  very  means  of  life. 

And  Sleep  must  lie  down  armed,  for  the  villainous  centre-bits 
Grind  on  the  wakeful  ear  in  the  hush  of  the  moonless  nights. 

While  another  is  cheating  the  sick  of  a  few  last  gasps,  as  he  sits 
To  pestle  a  poisoned  poison  behind  his  crimson  lights. 

When  a  Mammonite  mother  kills  her  babe  for  a  biu-ial  fee, 
And  Timour- Mammon  grins  on  a  pile  of  children's  bones, 

Is  it  peace  or  war?  better,  wart  loud  war  by  land  and  by  sea. 
War  with  a  thousand  battles,  and  shaking  a  hundred  thrones. 

Stanzas  from  In  Memobiam. 

I  envy  not  in  any  moods 

The  captive  void  of  noble  rage, 

The  linnet  born  within  the  cage. 
That  never  knew  the  summer  woods: 

I  envy  not  the  beast  that  takes 

His  license  in  the  fields  of  time, 

Unfettered  by  the  sense  of  crime, 
To  whom  a  conscience  never  wakes ; 


298  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson; 

Nor,  what  may  count  itself  as  blest, 
The  heart  that  never  plighted  troth, 
But  stagnates  in  the  weeds  of  sloth; 

Nor  any  want-begotten  rest. 

I  hold  it  true,  whate'er  befall ; 

I  feel  it  when  I  sorrow  most; 

'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all. 


Song  from  Maud. 

Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown ; 

Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
I  am  here  at  the  gate  alone ; 

And  the  woodbine  spices  are  wafted  abroad, 
And  the  musk  of  the  roses  blown. 

For  a  breeze  of  morning  moves, 
And  the  planet  of  Love  is  on  high. 

Beginning  to  faint  in  the  light  that  she  loves 
On  a  bed  of  daffodil  sky. 

To  faint  in  the  light  of  the  sun  she  loves. 
To  faint  in  his  light,  and  to  die. 

All  night  have  the  roses  heard 

The  flute,  violin,  bassoon; 
All  night  has  the  casement  jessamine  stirred 

To  the  dancers  dancing  in  tune ; 
Till  a  silence  fell  with  the  waking  bird, 

And  a  hush  with  the  setting  moon. 

I  said  to  the  lily,  "  There  is  but  one 

With  whom  she  has  heart  to  be  gay. 
When  will  the  dancers  leave  her  alone  ? 

She  is  weary  of  dance  and  play." 
Now  half  to  the  setting  moon  are  gone. 

And  half  to  the  rising  day ; 
Low  on  the  sand  and  loud  on  the  stone 

The  last  wheel  echoes  away. 


Alfbbd  Tbnnyson.  299 

I  said  to  the  rose,  "  The  brief  night  goes 

In  babble  and  revel  and  wine. 
0  young  lord-lover,  what  sighs  are  these 

For  one  that  will  never  be  thine  ? 
But  mine,  but  mine,"  so  I  swore  to  the  rose, 

"  For  ever  and  ever  mine." 


eobebt  browning. 

Incident  of  the  Fbench  Camp. 

You  know,  we  French  stormed  Katisbon: 

A  mile  or  so  away 
On  a  little  mound,  Napoleon 

Stood  on  our  storming-day ; 
"With  neck  out-thrust,  you  fancy  how, 

Legs  wide,  arms  locked  behind. 
As  if  to  balance  the  prone  brow 

Oppressive  with  its  mind. 

Just  as  perhaps  he  mused,  "  My  plans 

That  soar,  to  earth  may  fall. 
Let  once  my  army-leader  Lannes 

Waver  at  yonder  wall " — 
Out  'twixt  the  battery-smokes  there  flew 

A  rider,  bound  on  bound 
Full-galloping ;  nor  bridle  drew 

Until  he  reached  the  mound. 

Then  off  there  flung  in  smiling  joy, 

And  held  himself  erect 
By  just  his  horse's  mane,  a  boy : 

You  hardly  could  suspect — 
(So  tight  he  kept  hia  lips  compressed. 

Scarce  any  blood  came  through) 
You  looked  twice  ere  you  saw  hia  breast 

"Was  all  but  shot  in  two. 

"  "Well,"  cried  he,  "Emperor,  by  Good's  grac* 

"We've  got  you  Ratisbon  I 
The  Marshal's  in  the  market-place, 

And  youll  be  there  anon 


SOO  Feom  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

To  see  your  flag-bird  flap  his  vans 

"Where  I,  to  heart's  desire, 
Perched  him  !  "     The  chief's  eye  flashed ;  his  plant 

Soared  up  again  like  fire. 

The  chief's  eye  flashed;  but  presently 

Softened  itself,  as  sheathes 
A  film  the  mother-eagle's  eye 

"When  her  bruised  eaglet  breathes ; 
"You're  wounded  I  "     "Nay,"  the  soldier's  pride 

Touched  to  the  quick,  he  said : 
"  I'm  killed,  sire  I  "     And  his  chief  beside. 

Smiling  the  boy  fell  dead. 

The  Lost  Leadee. 

Just  for  a  handful  of  silver  he  left  us,  * 

Just  for  a  ribbon  to  stick  in  his  coat — 
Found  the  one  gift  of  which  fortune  bereft  us. 

Lost  all  the  others,  she  lets  us  devote ; 
They,  with  the  gold  to  give,  doled  him  out  silver, 

So  much  was  theirs  who  so  little  allowed : 
How  all  our  copper  had  gone  for  his  service  I 

Rags — were  they  purple,  his  heart  had  been  proud  I 
"We  that  had  loved  him  so,  followed  him,  honored  him. 

Lived  in  his  mild  and  magnificent  eye. 
Learned  his  great  language,  caught  his  clear  accents. 

Made  him  our  pattern  to  live  and  to  die  I 
Shakspere  was  of  us,  Milton  was  for  us. 

Burns,  Shelley  were  with  us — they  watch  from  their  graves! 
He  alone  breaks  from  the  van  and  the  freemen, 

He  alone  sinks  to  the  rear  and  the  slaves  ! 

We  shall  march  prospering — not  through  his  presence  j 

liongs  may  inspirit  us — not  from  liis  lyre ; 
Deeds  will  be  done,  while  he  boasts  his  quiescence, 

St'll  bidding  crouch  whom  the  rest  bade  aspire : 
Blot  lut  his  name,  then,  record  one  lost  soul  more, 

Ont  task  more  declined,  one  more  footpath  untrod. 
One  m  ire  devil's  triumph  and  sorrow  for  angels. 

One  VTong  more  to  man,  one  more  insult  to  God  I 
Life's  night  begins :  let  him  never  come  back  to  us  I 


Robert  Browning.  301 

There  would  be  doubt,  besitation,  and  pain, 
Forced  praise  on  our  part — the  glimmer  of  twilight, 

Never  glad  confident  morning  again  I 
Best  figlit  on  well,  for  we  taught  him — strike  gallantly, 

Menace  our  heart  ere  we  master  his  own; 
Then  let  him  receive  the  new  knowledge  and  wait  us, 

Pardoned  in  heaven,  the  first  by  the  throne  I 


Meeting  at  Night. 

The  gray  sea  and  the  long  black  land, 
And  the  yellow  half-moon  large  and  low ; 
And  the  startled  little  waves  that  leap 
In  fiery  ringlets  from  their  sleep, 
As  I  gain  the  cove  with  pushing  prow 
And  quench  its  speed  in  the  slushy  sand. 

Then  a  mile  of  warm  sea-scented  beach ; 

Three  fields  to  cross  till  a  farm  appears; 

A  tap  at  the  pane,  the  quick  sharp  scratch 

And  blue  spurt  of  a  lighted  match, 

And  a  roice  less  loud,  through  its  joya  and  feara, 

Than  the  two  hearts  beating  each  to  each  1 


WoEK  AND  Worth. 

(Fkhq  Rabhi  Ben  Ezra.] 
Not  on  the  vulgar  mass 
Called  "  work  "  must  sentence  pass, 

Things  done,  that  took  the  eye  and  had  the  price ; 
O'er  which,  from  level  stand, 
The  low  world  laid  its  hand, 

Found  straightway  to  its  mind,  could  value  in  a  trice  : 

But  all,  the  world's  coarse  thumb 
And  finger  failed  to  plumb. 

So  passed  in  making  up  the  main  account ; 
All  instincts  immature. 
All  purposes  unsure, 

That  weighed  not  as  his  work,  yet  swelled  the  man's  amount: 


302  From  Chaucer  to  Tennyson. 

Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 
Into  a  narrow  act, 

Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped ; 
All  I  could  never  be, 
All  men  ignored  in  me, 

This  I  was  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped. 

Home  Thoughts  From  Abroad. 

O,  to  be  in  England 

Now  that  April's  there, 

And  whoever  wakes  in  England 

Sees,  some  morning,  unaware, 

That  the  lowest  boughs  and  the  brush- wood  sheafs 

Round  the  elm-tree  bole  are  in  tiny  leaf, 

"While  the  chafBnch  sings  on  the  orchard  bough 

In  England — now  ! 

And  after  April,  when  May  follows, 

And  the  white  throat  builds,  and  all  the  swallows  I 

Hark  where  my  blossomed  pear-tree  in  the  hedge 

Leans  to  the  field  and  scatters  on  the  clover 

Blossoms  and  dew-drops — at  the  bent  spray's  edge-  - 

That's  the  wise  thrush ;  he  sings  each  song  twice  ever. 

Lest  you  should  think  he  never  could  recapture 

The  first  fine  careless  rapture  I 

And  though  the  fields  look  rough  with  hoary  dew, 

All  will  be  gay  when  noontide  wakes  anew 

The  buttercups,  the  little  children's  dower, 

Far  brighter  than  this  gaudy  melon-flower  I 


INDEX. 


An  index  to  the  English   authors  and  writings  and  the  principal  English 
periodicals  mentioned  in  this  volume. 


Absalom  and  Ahitophel,  131, 
Account  of  the  Greatest  English  Poets, 

An,  129. 
Adam  Bede,  206,  207. 
Addison,  Joseph,  112,  129, 134, 136, 139, 

140,  184,  204,  207,  209. 
Address  to  the  Unco  Guid,  161. 
Adeline,  214. 
Adonais,  192,  193. 
Adventures  of  Five  Hours,  128. 
Adventures  of  Philip,  204. 
Ae  Fond  Kiss,  160. 
A  King  and  No  King,  95,  97,  98. 
Aella,  146. 

A  Man's  a  Man  for  a'  that,  163. 
Aeneid,  translated  by  Surrey,  48. 
Agincourt,  72. 
Aids  to  Reflection,  175. 
Akenside,  Mark,  143. 
Alastor,  190,  192. 
Albion's  England,  71. 
Alchemist,  The,  90. 
Alexander  and  Campaspe,  76. 
Alexander's  Feast,  130. 
Alfred,  King,  7,  8,  12,  44. 
All  for  Love,  124,  125. 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  84. 
Amelia,  154. 
Amoretti,  55,  69. 
Anatomy    of   Melancholy,    The,    100, 

101. 
Ancient  Mariner,  The,  168, 175, 176. 
Ancren  Riwle,  The,  17. 
Anglo- Sa.xon  Chronicle,  The,  10,  11. 
Annus  Mirabilis,  131. 
Anthony  and  Cleopatra,  86,  124. 
Antiquary,  The,  183. 
Araby's  Daughter,  189. 
Arcadia,  The  Countess  of  Pembroke's 

61,  62,  65. 
Areopagitica,  115. 


Argument    ag^nst  Abolishing  Chris- 

tianitv.  An,  142. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  16,  20, 172. 
Art  of  English  Poesy,  The,  65. 
Artificial  Comedy  or  the  hast  Century, 

The,  127,  180. 
Ascham,  Roger,  38,  45,  46,  50, 105. 
Astrophel  and  Stella,  62,  69. 
As  You  Like  It,  60,  66,  84,  85. 
Auld  Farmer's  New  Year's  Salutation, 

The,  162. 
Auld  Lang  Syne,  162. 
Austen,  Jane,  183. 
"  Authorized  Version,"  The,  23,  46. 
Ayenbite  of  Inwyt,  The,  17. 

Bacon,  Francis,  63,  67,  68,  80, 114,  207, 

209. 
Ballad  upon  a  Wedding,  110. 
Banished  Cavaliers,  The,  126. 
Bard,  The,  130,  144,  149. 
Baron's  Wars,  The,  71. 
Bartholomew  Fair,  89, 123. 
Battle  of  the  Baltic,  The,  184. 
Battle  of  Hastings,  The,  146. 
Battle  of  Otterboume,  The,  41. 
Baviad,  The,  143,  165. 
Beattie,  James,  144,  147, 160. 
Beaumont,  Francis,  69,  75, 81, 89,  98-99, 

127. 
Beaux'  Stratagem.  The,  126. 
Beggar's  Opera,  The,  143. 
Behn,  Aphra,  126. 
Beppo,  187. 

Bible,  Translations  of  the,  23,  46,  47. 
Biographia  Literaria,  174,  175. 
Biographical  History  of  Philosophy,  A, 

205. 
Biographical    Sketches,  De   Quincey'g 

178. 
Bishop  Orders  his  Tomb,  The,  219. 


304 


Index. 


Blackwood's  Magazine,  165,  166,  176, 

206. 
Bleak  House,  178, 199,  202,  207. 
Blot  in  the  Scutcheon,  A,  220. 
Boke  of  the  Duchesse,  The,  25,  31. 
Book   of  Common  Prayer,   The,  47, 

115. 
Book  of  Martyrs,   Fox's,  133. 
Bos  well,  James,  149-152. 
Bourchier,  John,  38. 
Bowj/e  of  Court,  39. 
"  Break,  break,  break,"  216. 
Brido  of  Abydos,  The,  184. 
Bride  of  Lammermoor,  The,  183. 
Brief  Appraisal  of  the  Greek  Literature, 

^  A,  178. 
Britannia's  Pastorals,  70. 
Broken  Heart,  The,  98. 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  197,  203. 
Brook,  The,  215. 
Brooke,  Arthur,  70. 
Brougham,  Henry,  165. 
Browne,    Thomas,    67,    100-103,  106, 

133. 
Browne,  William,  70. 
Browning,  Elizabeth,  159. 
Browning,  Robert,  191,  214,  215,  217- 

220. 
Brut,  The,  15. 
Bugle  Song.  215. 
Bunyan,  John,  22,  55,  133,  209. 
Burke,  Edmund,  150,  157,  165. 
Burns,  Eobert,  40,  157,  159-163,  171, 

193,  210. 
Burton,  Eobert,  100,  101, 180. 
Butler,  Samuel,  122,  123. 
Byron,  George  Gordon,  70,  143,   159, 

164,    169-171,   176,    179,    184-193, 

195. 

Cain,  185. 

Caliban  upon  Setebos,  217. 

Campaign,  The,  140. 

Campbell,  Thomas,  184. 

Canterbury  Tales,  Tlie,  20,  22,  26-29, 

32,  34, 129. 
Capgrave's  Chronicle,  12. 
Captain  Singleton,  152. 
Carew,  Thomas,  108, 110,  111. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,   150,  155,  160,  162, 

166,  182,  183,  190.  207,  210-218. 
Castle  of  Indolence,  The,  147. 
Castle  of  Otranto,  The,  144,  183. 
Casuistry  of  Roman  Meals,  The,  178. 
Catiline,  86. 
Cato,  140. 
Cavjuier  Tunes,  218. 


Caxton,  William,  36-38,  40,  44. 

Ceuci,  The,  191. 

Chances,  Tlie,  95. 

Chapman,  George,  70,  71, 194. 

Characteristics,  210. 

Chartism,  211. 

Chatterton,  Thomas,  144,  145,  180. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  8,  10,  19,  22,  24-29, 

81-34,  39,   41,    44,    48-60,   70,   72, 

129,  132,  144,  169,  194,  214. 
Cheke,  John,  45. 
Chesterfield's  Letters,  135. 
Chevy  Chase,  41. 
Childe  Harold,  184, 185,  187,  189. 
Christabel,^174-176. 
Christian  Year,  The,  107. 
"  Christopher  North,"  165. 
Christ's  Victory  and  Triumph,  118. 
Chronicle  of  England,  Capgrave's,  12. 
Church  and  State,  175. 
Church  History,  Fuller's,  24,  103. 
Clannesse,  20. 
Claribel,  214. 

Clarissa  Harlowe,  152, 153. 
Coelum  Britannicum,  110. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  87,  95,  101,153,  155, 

162,  164, 166-168, 172-176,  178-180, 

188,  209. 
Colet,  John,  45,  47. 
Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again,  51. 
Collar,  The,  107. 
Collier,  Jeremy,  127. 
Collins,    William,    144,    147-149,   152, 

156, 180. 
Colombe's  Birthday,  220. 
Colonel,  The,  90. 
Comedy  of  Errors,  77,  83. 
Comic  Dramatists  of  the  Restoration, 

209. 
Committee,  The.  126. 
Complaint   of  the  Decay  of  Beggars, 

180. 
Complaints,  52. 
Compleat  Angler,  The,  104, 
Comus,  15,  98,  112,  113, 119. 
Conduct  of  the  Allies,  134. 
Confessio  Amantis,  29. 
Confessions  of  an  English  Opium  Eater, 

177.  _ 
Confutation    of   the    Animadversionjs, 

etc..  A,  115. 
Congreve,  William,  126, 136,  143. 
Conquest  of  Granada,  The,  125. 
Constable,  Henry,  69. 
Cooper's  Hill,  129. 
Ooriolanus,  86. 
Corsair,  The,  184. 


Index. 


305 


Cotter's  Saturday  Night,  The,  160, 

Country  Wife,  The,  125, 126. 

Court  of  Love.  The,  31. 

Coverdale,  Miles,  46. 

Cowley,  Abraham,  105,  106,  109, 110, 

121, 128,  130, 133. 
Cowper,  William,  71, 148, 157-160, 171, 

172. 
Crabbe,  George,  171, 172. 
Cradle  Song,  215. 
Crashaw,  Eichard,  105, 109, 110. 
Critic,  The,  127. 
Cromwell's  Letters,  211. 
Crowne,  John,  125. 
Cuckoo  and  the  Nightingale,  The,  31. 
Curse  of  Kehama,  The,  176. 
Cursor  Mundi,  17. 
Cymbeline,  15,  85,  147. 
Cynthia's  Bevels,  90. 

Dame  Siriz,  27. 

Daniel  Deronda,  207. 

Daniel,  Samuel,  69,  71,  72. 

Daphnaida,  52. 

Davenant,  William,  121, 124, 128. 

David  and  Bethsabe,  78. 

David  Copperfield,  199. 

Davideis,  The,  110. 

Davison's  Poetical  Rhapsody,  69. 

Death  and  Dr.  Hornbook,  161. 

Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
157. 

Defense  of  Chimney  Sweeps,  A,  180. 

Defense  of  Poesy,  62. 

Defensio  pro  Populo  Anglicano,  115. 

Defoe,  Daniel,  134,  141,  152. 

Denhara,  John,  129. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  101, 164, 176-178, 
209. 

Derby,  Earl  of,  71. 

Description  of  England,  71. 

Deserted  Village,  The,  156. 

Destruction  of  Jerusalem,  The,  125. 

Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys,  127. 

Diary  of  H.  C.  Robinson,  178. 

Dickens,  Charles,  178,  197-207. 

Dictes  and  Sayings  of  the  Philosophers, 
36. 

Dictionary  of  the  English  Language, 
Johnson's,  151. 

Diflference  between  Absolute  and  Lim- 
ited Monarchy,  35. 

Dirge  in  Cymbeline,  147. 

Discoveries,  77. 

Discovery  of  the  Empire  of  Guiana,  64. 

Divine  Emblems,  108. 

Divine  Weeks  and  Works,  117. 


Doctor  Faustus,  77,  78,  87. 

Dombey  and  Son,  199. 

Don  Juan,  187. 

Donne,  John,  104, 107,  110,  128,  131, 

132. 
Dora,  215. 

Dowie  Dens  of  Yarrow,  The,  42. 
Dramatic  Lyrics,  218. 
Dramatis  Personse,  218. 
Drayton,  Michael,  61,  69,  71,  72, 104. 
Dream  Children,  180. 
Dream  of  Fair  Women,  A,  214. 
Dream  of  the  Unknown,  A,  192. 
Drummond,  William,  69. 
Dryden,  John,  27,  46,  56,  94, 109,  111, 

115, 122, 124-126, 128-134, 136, 138, 

141,  143,  148,  157. 
Duchess  of  Malfl,  The,  98. 
Duke  of  Lerma,  The,  125. 
Dunciad,  The,  135,  136. 
Dyer,  John,  147,  149,  162. 
Dying  Swan,  The,  214. 

Earle,  John,  207. 

Eastward  Hoe,  88. 

Easy  and  Ready  Way  to  Establish  a 

Free  Commonwealth,  An,  115. 
Ecclesiastical  Polity,  66,  67. 
Edgeworth,  Maria,  183. 
Edinburgh  Review,  The,  165,  208,  210. 
Edward  IL,  77. 
Edwin  Alorris,  215. 
Elaine,  214. 
Eleanoro,  214. 
Elegy  on  Thyrza,  188. 
Elegy  to  the  Memory  of  an  Unfortunate 

Lady,  138. 
Elegy  written  in  a  Country  Churchyard, 

147,  148. 
"  Eliot,  George,"  68, 183,  198,  205-207. 
Elixir,  The,  108. 
Elliott,  Jane,  44. 
Empress  of  Morocco,  The,  125. 
Encouragements  to  a  Lover,  111. 
Endvmion,  193,  194. 
England's  Helicon.  69. 
England's  Heroical  Epistles,  71. 
English  Bards  and  Scotch  Keviewers, 

143. 
English  Humorists,  204. 
Enid,  216. 
Epipsychidion,  192. 
Epistle  of  Eloisa  to  Abelard,  138. 
Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  136. 
Epistle  to  the  Countess  of  Cumberland, 

72. 
Epithalamion,  54,  55. 


306 


Index. 


Essays,  Bacon's,  67. 

Essays  of  Elia,  180. 

Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesie,  124, 132. 

Essay  on  Criticism,  129. 

Essay  on  the  Genius  and  Writings  of 

Pope,  148. 
Essay  on  Man,  135. 
Essay  on  Poetry,  129. 
Essay  on  Satire.  129. 
Essay  on  Translated  Verse,  129. 
Ethereofe,  George,  126,  127. 
Euphues,  59,  60,  65. 
Evans,  Mary  Ann,  198. 
Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  The,  194. 
•Evelyn  Hope,  219. 
Evening's  Love,  An,  125. 
Evergreen,  The,  44. 
Every  Man  in  his  Humor,  89,  90. 
Every  Man  out  of  his  Humor,  89. 
Excursion,  The,  168,  171. 

Fables,  Dryden's,  132. 

Fair  and  Happy  Milkmaid,  The,  68. 

Fair  Helen  of  Kirkconnell,  42. 

Faerie  Queene,  The,  12,  38,  50,  51-54, 

103,  133,  147,  194. 
Faithful  Shepherdess,  The,  98. 
Faits  of  Arms,  36. 
Fall  of  Kobespierre,  166. 
Fall  of  the  Bastile,  166. 
Falls  of  Princes,  32,  50. 
Famous  Victories  of  Henry  V.,  83. 
Farquhar,  George,  126. 
Fatima.  214. 
Felix  Holt,  206. 

Ferdinand,  Count  Fathom,  154. 
Ferguson,  Eobert,  160. 
Fielding,  Henry,  153-157,  183,  203,  204. 
Fingal,  145. 

First  Epistle  to  Davie,  163. 
"First  Folio,"  The,  80,  81. 
Flaming  Heart,  The,  109. 
Fleece,  The,  147. 
Fletcher,  Giles,  118. 
Fletcher,  Jolin,  69.  75,  79,  81,  83,  93, 

99,  114,  127. 
Fletcher,  Phineas,  105. 
Flower  and  the  Leaf,  The,  31. 
Ford,  John,  98,  99. 
Foreign  Keview,  The,  210. 
Forest,  The,  91. 
Forsaken  Bride,  The,  42. 
Fortescue,  John,  85. 
Fountain,  The,  169. 
Four  Georges,  The,  204. 
Fox  and  the  Wolf,  The,  28. 
Fox,  George,  133. 


Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  219. 
Franklin's  Tale,  The,  28. 
Fraser's  Magazine,  166,  202,  212. 
Frederick  the  Great,  Carlyle's,  211. 
Frederick  the  Great,  Macaulay's  Essay 

on,  209. 
French  Revolution,  Carlyle's,  212. 
French  Eevolution  as  it  Appeared  to 

Enthusiasts,  The,  167. 
Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,  78. 
Fuller,  Thomas,  24,  102,  103,  180,  207. 

Gardener's  Daughter,  The,  215. 
Garden  of  Cyrus,  The,  101. 
Gascoigne,  George,  58. 
"  Gather  ye  Kosebuds  While  Ye  May," 

109. 
Gay,  John,  137,  204. 
Gebir,  179. 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  14, 15. 
Gertrude  of  Wyoming,  184. 
Giaour,  The,  184. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  157,  209. 
Gifford,  William,  143.  165. 
Girl  Describes  her  Fawn,  The  120. 
Glove,  The,  218. 
"  Go,  Lovely  Rose,"  111. 
Goddwyn,  146. 
Golden  Legend,  The,  19,  36. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  121,  127,  150,  155, 

157,  183,  204. 
Good  Thoughts  in  Bad  Times,  103. 
Goody  Blake  and  Harry  Gill,  169. 
Gorboduc,  15.  50. 
Gosson,  Stepnen,  60. 
Gotz  von  Berliohingen,  translated   by 

Scott.  181. 
Governail  of  Princos,  The,  31. 
Gower,  John,  29,  33. 
Graham,  James,  111. 
Grammarian's  Funeral,  The,  217. 
Gray,  Thomas,  121,  130,  144,  146-149, 

152, 156,  180. 
Great  Expectations,  200. 
Great  Hoggarty  Diamond,  The,  202. 
Greene,  Robert,  60,  66,  76,  78. 
"  Green  Grow  The  Rashes,  O,"  160. 
Groat's  Worth  of  Wit,  A,  66. 
Grocyn,  William,  45. 
Grongar  Hill,  147. 
Guest,  Charlotte,  216. 
Guinevere,  216,  217. 
Gulliver's  Travels,  141. 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  64. 
Hales,  Thomas  de,  17. 
Hall,  Josepli,  69,  131,  132. 


Index. 


807 


Hamlet,  12.  85,  87, 164,  220. 

Handlyng  Sinue,  17. 

Harp  of  Tara,  The,  189. 

Harrison's  Description  of  England,  71. 

Harvey,  Gabriel,  61. 

Hawes,  Stephen,  38,  39,  49,  50. 

Hazlitt,  William,  190. 

Heads  of  the  People,  68. 

Jleart  of  Midlothian,  The,  133. 

Hellenics:,  179. 

Henry  IV.,  82. 

Henry  V.,  82. 

Henry  VI.,  81,  82. 

Henry  VIII.,  57,  81,  82. 

Henry  Esmond,  183,  203,  204 

Henry  of  Huntingdon,  12. 

Herbert,  George,  1C4, 105,  107, 109. 

Hereford,  Nicholas,  23. 

Heretic's  Tragedy,  The,  219. 

Hero  and  Leander,  70. 

Heroes  and  Hero  Worship,  207,  211. 

Herrick,  Robert,  105,  108, 109. 

Hesperides,  The,  108. 

Hind  and  the  Panther,  The,  132. 

Historia  Britonum,  15. 

History,  Essay  on,  210,  212. 

History  of  Edward  V.,  47. 

History  of  England,  Macaulay's,  208, 

209. 
History  of  Frederick  the  Great,  211. 
History  of  the  Civil  Wars,  71. 
History  of  the  World,  64. 
Histrio-roastix,  95. 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  115,  121. 
Hohenhnden,  184. 
Holinshed's  Chronicle,  66,  71. 
Holy  and  Profane  State,  The,  103,  207. 
Holy  Dying,  103, 104. 
Holy  Fair,  The,  161. 
Holy  Living,  103. 
Holy  Tulzie,  The,  161. 
Holy  Willie's  Prayer,  161. 
Homer,  translated  by  Chapman,  71, 194. 
Homer,  translated  by  Pope,  135. 
Homer  and  the  Homeridse,  178. 
Hooker,  Eicliard,  66, 104. 
Horatian   Ode   upon  Cromwell's    Ke- 

tum,  120. 
Hous  of  Fame,  The,  25,  26. 
Howard,  Honrj-,  48,  49. 
Howard,  Robert,  125,  126. 
How  to  Keep  a  True  Lent,  108. 
How  we  Brought  the  Good  News  from 

Ghent,  215. 
Hudibr.-is,  122,  123. 
Hume.  David,  209. 
Humphrey  Clinker,  155. 


Huntj  Leigh,  68, 191. 

Hunting  of  the  Cheviot,  The,  41. 

Kurd,  Richard.  144, 

Hydriotaphia,  101. 

Hymns  on  Love  and  Beauty,  52,  55. 

Hymn  to  Diana,  90. 

Hymn  to  the  Spirit  of  Nature,  192. 

Hypatia,  183. 

Hyperion,  193. 

Idiot  Boy,  The,  169. 

Idler,  The,  140,  151. 

Idyllia  Heroica,  179. 

Idyls  of  The  King,  16,  214,  216. 

Iliad,  The,  translated  by  Chapman,  71. 

U  Penseroso,  113,  147.  " 

Imaginary  Conversations,  179. 

Impressions  of  Theophrastus  Such,  68, 

207. 
In  a  Balcony,  220. 
In  Memoriam,  216. 
Incident  of  the  French  Camp,  219. 
Indian  Emperor,  The,  125. 
Irish  Melodies,  189. 
Irish  Sketch-Book,  The,  202. 
Isabel.  214. 
Isabella,  194. 
Isle  of  Palms,  The,  176. 
Isles  of  Greece,  Tlie,  188. 
Ivaiihoe,  183. 

James  I.  of  Scotland,  32,  88. 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  165,  208. 

Jerrold.  Douglas,  68. 

Jock  O'Hazeldean,  182. 

John  Barloycorii,  161. 

John  Gilpin,  159. 

Johnson,   Samuel,   68,   101,   105,   107, 

117,  130,  132,  135,  140,   143,  147, 

149-152,  156, 165,  204. 
Jolly  Beggars,  The,  40,  161. 
Jonathan  Wild,  154,  201. 
Jonson,  Ben,   50,  60,  62,  69,   72,  77, 

80,  81,  83,  86,  88-91,  94,  98,  106, 

108,  112, 122, 123,  201. 
Joseph  Andrews,  153. 
Journal  of  the  Plague,  152. 
Julius  CfiBsar,  85,  86,  128. 

Keats,  John,  54,  71,  164,  188, 193-195. 

Keble,  John,  107. 

Kenilworth,  58,  183. 

Killigrew,  Thomas,  126. 

"  King  James's  Bible,"  23. 

Kin?  John,  82,  83. 

King  Lear,  12,  15,  85,  97,  128. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  175,  183,  197. 


308 


Index. 


King's  Quhair,  The,  S2.  33. 

King's  Tragedy,  The,  33. 

Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle,  The,  98. 

Knight's  Tale,  The,  25,  27,  32,  34. 

Kubla  Khan,  174,  176. 

Kyd,  Thomas,  76. 

La  Belle  Dame  sans  Mcrei,  194. 

Lady  of  Shalott,  The,  214. 

Lady  of  The  Lake,  Tlie,  182. 

Lalla  Eookh,  189. 

L' Allegro,  113, 147. 

Lamb,' Charles,  54,  127,  140,  164,179, 

180,  207. 
Lament  for  Flodden,  44. 
Laaiia,  194. 

"  Landlady,  Count  The  Lawin',"  162. 
Land  of  Cokaygne,  The,  18,  27. 
Landor,  W.  S.,  164,  169,  178, 179. 
Langland,  William,  21,  22,  25,  28,  42. 
Lara,  184. 

LastKide  Together,  The.  219. 
Last  Rose  of  Summer,  The,  189. 
Latimer,  Hugh,  47. 
Latter  Day  Pamphlets,  211. 
Layamon,  15. 
Lay  of  The  Ash,  27. 
Lay  of  The  Last  Minstrel,  182. 
Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  210. 
Leoen  Jesu,  translated  by  George  Eliot, 

205. 
Lectures    on    Shakspere,    Coleridge's, 

175. 
Lee,  Nathaniel,  125. 
Legend  of  Good  Women,  The,  25,  214. 
Leonora,  translated  by  Scott,  181. 
Lessing,  DeQuincey's  Essay  On,  178. 
L'Estrange,  Roger,  110. 
Letters  from  Italy,  (Addison's),  184. 
Letters  from  Italy  (Wotton's),  104. 
Letters  on  Chivalry  and  Romance,  144. 
Letters  on  Toleration,  115. 
Lewes,  G.  H.,  205. 
Lewis,  M.  G.,  183. 
Liberty  of  Prophesying,  115. 
Life  of  Johnson,  Boswell's,  149. 
Life  of  Nelson,  Southey's,  176. 
Life  of  Schiller,  Carlyle's,  210. 
Life  of  Scott,  Lockhart's,  165. 
Light  of  Other  Days,  The,  189. 
Lilian,  214. 
Lily,  William,  45. 
Linacre,  Thomas,  45. 
Lines  to  an  Indian  Air,  192. 
Lines  written  near  Tintern  Abbey,  168. 
Little  Dorrit,  207. 
Lives  of  Saints,  19. 


Lives  of   the  Poets,    Johnson's,  148, 

151. 
Lives,  Walton's,  104. 
Locke,  John,  115,  121. 
Lockhart,  J.  G.,  165. 
Locksley  Hall,  21 6. 
Locrine,  15. 

Lodge,  Thomas,  60,  66,  76. 
London,  143. 
London  Lyckpenny,  32. 
London  Magazine,  The,  177, 186. 
Lord  Clive,  209. 
Lord  of  the  Isles,  182. 
Lost  Leader,  The,  218. 
Lotus  Eaters^  The,  214,  215. 
Lovelace,  Richard,  110. 
Love's  Labours  Lost,  77,  83. 
Love's  Triumph,  90. 
Luck  of  Barry  Lyndon,  The,  202. 
Lucy,  169. 
Lurin,  220. 
Luve  Ron,  A,  17. 
Lycidas,  51,  113,  114. 
Lydgate,  John,  31-33,  50. 
Lyly,  John,  59-61,  66,  69,  76  . 
Lyrical  Ballads,  168,  171,  172. 
Lytell  Gesle  of  Robin  Hood,  A,  144. 

Mabinogion,  The,  216. 

Macaulay,  T.   B.,  123,  127,  150,  151, 

207-210. 
Macbeth,  12,  85,  87,  98,  128. 
Miic  Flecknoe,  131. 
Macpherson,  James,  144, 145,  180. 
Madeline,  214. 
Mseviad,  The,  143, 165. 
Maid's  Tragedy,  The,  95. 
Malory,  Thomas,  17,  37,  216. 
Miindeville,  John,  34,  35. 
Manfred,  185. 
Manly  Heart,  The,  111 
Map,  Walter,  16. 
Margaret,  214. 

Margaret  Nicholson's  Remains,  190. 
Mariana,  214,  215. 
Mariana  in  the  South,  214. 
Marlowe,   Christopher,    70-72,    76-79, 

87.  98. 
Marmion,  182. 
Marston,  Jolm,  131, 
Martin  Chuzzelwit,  199. 
"  Martin  Marprelate,"  66,  92. 
Marvel,  Andrew,  120,  131. 
Mason,  William,  144,  146. 
Master  Humphrey's  Clock,  199. 
Matthew  of  Westminster,  12. 
Maud,  216. 


Index. 


309 


May  Queen,  The,  215. 

Measure  for  Measure,  84,  214. 

Medal,  The,  131. 

Meeting  of  the  "Waters,  The,  189. 

Memorials  of  a  Tour  in  Scotland,  170. 

Men  and  Women,  214,  218. 

Menaphon,  60. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  The,  84. 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  The,  70,  89, 

90,  127. 
Microcosmographie,  Earle's,  207. 
Middlemarch,  206,  207. 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  A,  57,  72. 

84,87. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  174. 
Mill  on  the  Floss,  The,  206. 
Miller's  Daughter,  The,  215. 
Milton,  John,  15, 51,  56,  67,  78„  87, 93, 

98,   103,    104,    111-121,   123,  132, 

133,  147-149,    152,  164,   168,   178, 

188, 191, 194, 195,  208. 
Minstrel,  The,  144, 147. 
Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border,  182. 
Mirrour  for  Magistrates,  60. 
Miser,  The,  125. 
Mistress,  The,  110. 
Modern  Painters,  207. 
Modest  Proposal,  A,  142. 
Monastery,  The,  69. 
Monk,  The,  183. 
Monk's  Tale,  The,  27. 
Moore,  Thomas,  164, 189. 
Moral  Essays,  136. 
More,  Thomas,  45-47. 
Morning  Post,  The,  164. 
Morris  William,  20. 
Morte  Darthur,  .17,  37,  38,  216. 
Mr.  Sludge,  the  Medium,  217. 
Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  76,  84. 
Muispotmos,  55. 
Mulgrave,  Earl  of,  129. 
Murder  Considered  as  One  of  the  Fine 

Art",  178. 
My  Heart's  in  the  Highlands,  162, 
My  Last  Duchass,  217. 
Mysteries  of  TJdolpho,  183. 

Nash,  Thomas,  45,  66. 
Necessity  of  Atheism,  The,  189. 
Nero,  125. 

Newcomes,  The,  203. 
Nicholas  Nickleby,  199,  202. 
Noble  Numbers,  108. 
Noctes  Ambroaianse,  165. 
Nonne  Preste's  Tale,  The,  19,  27. 
North,  Thomas,  66. 
Northern  Farmer,  The,  317. 


Nut-brown  Maid,  The,  41. 
Nymph  idia,  72. 

Observations  on  the  Faerie  Queene. 

Occleve,  Thomas,  31,  33. 

Ode  on  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton 
College,  148. 

Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  194. 

Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortal- 
ity, 108,  168. 

Ode  on  the  Superstitions  of  the  Scot- 
tish Highlands,  144. 

Ode  to  Autumn,  194. 

Ode  to  Evening,  147. 

Ode  to  France,  166. 

Ode  to  Memorj[,  213. 

Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  194. 

Ode  to  SimplicityjJ47. 

Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  192. 

Odyssey,  The,  translated  by  Chapman, 
71. 

CEnone,  214. 

Old  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple,  The, 
180. 

Old  China,  180. 

Old  Curiosity  Shop,  The,  199. 

Oliver  Twist,  199,  207. 

Olney  Hymns,  157. 

On  a  Girdle,  111. 

On  a  Picture  of  Leander,  194. 

On  First  Looking  into  Chapman'a 
Homer,  71, 194. 

On  Receipt  of  My  Mother's  Picture, 
158. 

On  Seeing  a  Harp  in  the  Shape  of  a 
Needle-Case,  171. 

On  Seeing  the  Elgin  Marbles,  194. 

On  the  Death  of  Thomson,  148. 

On  the  Morning  of  Christ's  Nativity, 
113, 119,  147. 

Order  of  Chivalry,  36. 

Ordericus  Vitalis,  12. 

Ormulum,  The,  17. 

Ossian,  Poems  of,  144-146. 

Othello,  85, 128. 

Otway,  Thomas,  125, 191. 

Our  Mutual  Friend,  199,  200. 

Over  the  Water  to  Charlie,  168. 

Overbury,  Thomas,  68. 

Owl  and  the  Nightingale,  The,  18. 

Pacience,  20. 

Palace  of  Art,  The,  215. 

Palace  of  Pleasure,  Paynter's,  66. 

Pamela,  162,  153. 

Pandosto,  66. 

Pap  with  a  Hatchet,  66. 


310 


Index. 


Paracelsus,  218. 

Paradise  Lost,  116-119,  133,  139,  164, 

191,  208. 
Paradise  Eegained,  118, 119. 
Parisina,  184. 

Paris  Sketch-Book,  The,  202. 
Parlament  of  Foules,  The,  25,  26,  31. 
Parson's  Wedding,  The,  126. 
Passetyme  of  Pleasure,  The,  38,  50. 
Passing  of  Artliur,  The,  16,  216,  217. 
Passionate  Pilgrim,  The,  69. 
Passionate  Shepherd  to  his  Love,  The, 

70. 
Past  and  Present,  211. 
Pastorals,  Pope's,  138. 
Patience,  90. 
Paynter,  William,  66. 
Peacock,  Reginald.  85. 
Peele,  George,  76,  78. 
Pendennis,  203. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  122, 123,  127, 128. 
Percy,  Thomas,  44,  144,  180. 
Peregrine  Pickle,  154. 
Perides  and  Aspasia,  179. 
Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre,  81. 
Perle,  The,  20. 
Peter  Bell,  169. 

Peterborougli  Chronicle,  The,  10, 11. 
Pet  Lamb,  The,  169. 
Philaster,  95,  97. 
Philips,  Ambrose,  143. 
Phyllip  Sparrowe,  40. 
Pickwick  Papers,  The,  198,  201,  207. 
Pied  Piper,  The,  219. 
Piers  Penniless'  Supplication,  66. 
Piers  the  Plowman's  Crede,  22. 
Piers  the  Plowman,  Vision  of  William 

concerning,  20-22. 
Pilgrimage,  The,  65. 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  The,  21, 133. 
Pippa  Passes,  220. 
Plain  Dealer,  The,  125. 
Pleasures  of  HopCj  184. 
Pleasures  of  Imagination,  143, 
Plowman's  Tale,  The,  22. 
Plutarch's  Lives,  translated  by  North, 

66. 
Poems  chiefly  in  the  Scottish  dialect, 

159. 
Poems  chiefly  Lyrical,  213. 
Poetaster,  The,  90. 
Poetical  Rhapsody,  Davison's,  69. 
Polyolbion,  The,  71,  72, 104. 
Poor  Relations,  180. 
Pope,  Alexander,  71,  111,  123,  128-130, 

132, 134-138, 141, 143, 148, 152,  156, 

166,  178,  184. 


Popular  Tales,  183. 

Prayer  in  Prospect  of  Death,  A,  161. 

Prayer  under  the  Pressure  of  Violent 

Anguish,  A,  161. 
Predictions  of  Isaac  Bickerstaflf,  142. 
Prelude,  The,  168,  171. 
Pricke  of  Conscience,  The,  17. 
Pride  and  Prejudice,  183. 
Princely  Pleasures  of  the  Court  of  Ken- 

ilworth,  58. 
Princess,  The,  215,  216. 
Prior,  Matthew,  134. 
Prisoner  of  Chillon,  The,  184. 
Progress  of  Poesy,  The,  130,  149. 
Prometheus  Unbound,  191,  192. 
Prothalamion,  Spenser's,  52,  54. 
"  Proud  Maisie  is  in  the  Wood,"  44, 

182. 
Pseudodoxia  Epidemica.  100. 
Public  Spirit  of  the  Whigs,  134,  165. 
Pulley,  The,  107. 
Punch,  202. 

Purple  Island,  The,  105,  118. 
"Purvey's  Revision,"  23. 
Puttenham,  George,  65. 

Quarles,  Francis,  105, 108. 
Quarterly  Review,  The,  165. 
Queen  Mab,  190. 
Queen  Mary,  217. 

RadclifiFe^nne,  183. 

Raleigh,  Walter,  51, 53,  57, 63-65, 70,  81. 

Rambler,  The,  140,  151. 

Ramsay,  Allan,  44,  160. 

Rape  of  Lucrece,  The,  70,  80. 

Rape  of  the  Lock,  The,  136,  137,  143, 

148. 
Rapture,  The,  110. 
Rasselas,  151. 
Keade,  Charles,  197. 
Recluse,  The,  171. 
Recollections  of  the  Arabian  Nights, 

214. 
Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France, 

165. 
Rehearsal,  The,  125, 131,  151. 
Relapse,  The,  126. 
Religio  Laici,  132. 
Religio  Medici,  101, 102. 
Reliques  of  Ancient  English  Poetry,  44, 

144,  180. 
Remarks  on  the  Tragedies  of  the  Last 

Age,  128. 
Repressor,  etc..  The,  35. 
Resolution  and  Independence,  169. 
Retreat,  The,  108. 


Index. 


311 


fieverie  of  Poor  Susan,  The,  169. 

Eevolt  of  Islam,  The,  190. 

Eevolt  of  the  Tartars,  The,  178. 

Keynard  the  Fox,  2S,  36. 

Richard  II.,  77,  82. 

Eichard  III.,  66,  82. 

Eichardson,  Samuel,  152-154,  157,  204. 

Eime  of  Sir  Thopas,  The,  27. 

Eing  and  the  Book,  The,  219. 

Eival  Queens,  The,  125. 

Eivals,  The,  127. 

Roast  Pig,  180. 

Rob  Roy,  183. 

Robert  or  Gloucester,  12. 

Eobin  Hood,  41-44. 

Eobinson  Crusoe,  134,  141, 152. 

Eobinson,  H.  C,  178. 

Eochester,  Earl  of,  130. 

Eoderick  Random,  154. 

Rokeby,  182. 

Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  25,38,  53. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  70,  85. 

Eomola,  183,  206. 

Eosalynde,  60,  66. 

Eoscommon,  Earl  of,  129. 

Rossetti,  D.  G.,  33. 

Roundheads,  The,  126. 

Royden,  Matthew,  63. 

Ruins  of  Time,  The,  68. 

Rule  a  Wife  and  Have  a  Wife,  95. 

Ruskin,  John,  207. 

Ruth,  169. 

Rymer,  Thomas.  128. 

Sackville,  Charles,  180. 

Sackville,  Thomas,  15,  50. 

Sad  Shepherd,  The,  91,  98. 

Samson  Agonistes,  56,  78, 118-120. 

Sartor  Resartus,  212,  213. 

Satires,  Pope's,  136. 

Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,  206. 

School  of  Abuse,  The,  69. 

School  for  Scandal,  The,  127. 

School-master,  The,  46,  50. 

School-mistress,  The,  147. 

Scornful  Lady,  The,  95. 

Scotch  Drink,  161. 

"  Scots  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled,"  162. 

Scott,  Walter,  44,  58,  59, 141,  164, 165, 

160,  170,  180-184,   186,   203,    205, 

209,  210,  215. 
Seasons,  The,  143, 149. 
Sedley,  Charles,  130. 
Seianus,  86. 
Selden,  John,  104. 
Sense  and  Sensibility,  183. 
Sentimental  Journey,  The,  155. 


Settle,  Elkanah,  125. 

Shadwell,  Thomas,  125, 128, 131,  136. 

Shakespeare,  William,  15,  28, 56-68, 60, 
62,  64,  66,  69,  70,  72-77,  79-90,  93, 
98,  111,  113,  117, 124, 125,  127,  128, 
137,  138,  147,  148,  151,  164,  173, 
175,  183,  194,  195,  201,  205,  210, 
213,  214,  218. 

She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  127. 

"  She  walks  in  beauty,"  188. 

"  She  was  a  phantom  of  delight,"  169. 

She  Would  if  She  Could,  126. 

Shelley,  P.  B.,  164, 186-193,  195. 

Shenstone,  William,  147,  152. 

Shephard's  Calendar,  The,  50,  51,  56. 

Shepherd's  Pipe,  The,  70. 

Sheridan,  E.  B.,  127, 156. 

Shirley,  James,  100. 

Sliort  View  of  the  English  Stage,  A, 
127. 

Short  View  of  Tragedy,  128. 

Shortest  Way  with  Dissenters,  The,  134. 

Sidney,  Philip,  38,  41,  51,  63,  57,  58, 
60-63,  69,  81,  103. 

Siege  of  Corinth,  The,  184. 

Siege  of  Rhodes,  The,  124. 

Signs  of  the  Times,  210. 

Silas  Marner,  206,  207. 

Silent  Woman.  The,  83,  90. 

Simeon  of  Durnam,  12. 

Simon  Lee,  169. 

Sir  Charles  Grandison,  152,  208. 

Sir  Galahad,  216. 

Sir  Gawayne,  20. 

Sir  Launcelot  and  Queen  Guinevere, 
216. 

Sir  Martin  Marall,  125. 

Sir  Patrick  Spence,  44. 

Skelton,  John,  39,  49,  49. 

Sketches  by  Boz,  198. 

Sleeping'  Beauty,  The,  214. 

Smith,  bydnev,  165. 

Smollett,  Tobias,  154,  155,  157,  204. 

Snob,  The,  202. 

Soliloquy  of  the  Spani.<«h  Cloister,  219. 

Solitary  Reaper,  The,  169. 

Song  of  the  Exiles  in  Bermuda,  120. 

Sonnets,  Shakespeare's,  80. 

Sonnets,  Wordsworth's,  168. 

Sordelio,  218. 

Southey,  Robert,  164, 166,  167. 

Spanish  Curate,  The,  95. 

Spanish  Friar,  The,  125. 

Specimens  of  English  dramatic  poets, 
180. 

Spectator,  The,  139^  140, 197. 

Speculum  Meditantis,  29. 


312 


Index. 


Speke,  Parrot,  40. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  12,38,41,  50-57,  59, 

63,  69,  81,  103,  114,  147-149,  194. 
St.  John,  Henry,  135. 
Stanzas  to  Augusta,  188. 
Stanzas  Written  in  Dejection,  192. 
State  of  Innocence,  The,  133. 
Steele,  Kichard,  134,  135,  139,  204. 
Sterne,  Lawrence,  101,  135,  140,  155- 

157.  204,  210. 
Story  of  Thebes,  The,  32. 
Stow,  John,  71. 
Strafford,  219. 
Strauss,   translated   by    George  Eliot, 

205. 
Style,  De  Quincey's  Essay  on,  178. 
Suckling,  John,  110. 
Survey  of  London,  71. 
Surrey,  Earl  of,  48,  49. 
Swift,  Jonathan,  134^136,  140-142, 165, 

203-205,  212. 
Swinburne,  A.  C,  16, 176. 
Sylvester,  Joshua,  114,  117. 

Table  Talk,  Coleridge's,  173. 

Table  Talk,  Cowper^s,  159. 

Table  Talk,  Selden's,  104. 

Tale  ofa  Tub,  141,  212. 

Tales  of  the  Hall,  171. 

Tales  of  Wonder,  183. 

Talisman,  The,  183. 

Tam  O'Shanter,  160, 161. 

Tamburlaine,  77. 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,  81,  83,  85. 

Task,  The,  158,  159. 

Tate,  Nahum,  128. 

Tatler,  The,  139,  197. 

Taxation  no  Tyranny,  165. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  103,  104, 115,  133. 

Tea-Table  Miscellany,  The,  44. 

Temora,  145. 

Tempest,  The,  64,  84,  87, 128. 

Temple,  The.  107. 

Temple,  William,  133,  140. 

Tennyson,   Alfred   8,   15-17,   37,  202, 

213-217. 
Testament  of  Love,  The,  34. 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  137,  141,  142,  155, 

183.  186,  198,  201-206. 
Thalaba,  176. 

Thierry  and  Theodoret,  95. 
Thomas  Lord  Cromwell,  83. 
Thomas  of  Ersyldoune,  42. 
Thomson,  James,  143, 144, 147-149, 159. 
Thorn,  The,  169. 
Those  Evening  Bells,  189. 
Thoughts  in  a  Garden,  120. 


Tiinbuctoo,  202. 

Times,  The,  164. 

Timon  of  Athens,  81,  86, 128. 

Tithonus,  215. 

Titus  Andronicus.  81,  85. 

To  a  Highland  Girl,  169. 

To  Althaea,  110. 

To  a  Mountain  Daisy,  162. 

To  a  Mouse,  162. 

To  a  Skylark,  192. 

To  Corinna,  109. 

To  Homer,  194. 

To  Lucasta,  110. 

To  Mary  in  Heaven,  160. 

To  Mary  Unwin,  158. 

To  the  Cuckoo,  169. 

Toilet  of  a  Hebrew  Lady,  178. 

Tom  Jones,  154. 

Tottel's  Miscellany,  48,  49. 

Tourneur,  Cyril,  99. 

Toxophilus,  38,  46,  105. 

Tragical  Tales,  66. 

Tristram  Shandy,  155. 

Troilus  and  Cresseide,  26. 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  85,  86, 128. 

Tunnyng  of  Elynoure  Rummyng,  The, 

40. 
Turberville,  George,  66. 
Twa  Corbies,  The,  42. 
Twa  Dogs,  The,  163. 
Twa  Herds,  The,  161. 
Tweltlh  Night,  84,  96,  97. 
Two  April  Mornings,  The,  169- 
Two  Gentlemen  of  v  erona,  84. 
Two  Voices,  The,  216. 
Tyndale,  William,  23,  46,  47. 
Tyrannic  Love,  125. 
Tyrwhitt's  Chaucer,  144. 

Ulysses,  215,  216. 

Underwoods,  71. 

Unloveliness  of  Love-locks,  The,  94. 

Urn  Burial,  101,  102. 

Utopia,  47. 

Valentinian,  95. 

Van  Brugh,  John,  126. 

Vanity  Fair,  202. 

Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  The,  143. 

Vaughan,  Henry,  105, 108. 

Venice  Preserved,  125. 

Venus  and  Adonis,  70,  80. 

Vicar  of  Wakefield,  The,  156. 

Village,  The,  171. 

Villiers,  George,  121,  125, 131, 151. 

Virginians,  The,  204. 

Virtue,  107. 


Index. 


813 


Vbion  of  Mirza,  The,  139. 

Vision  of  Sin,  The,  216. 

Vision  of  Sudden  Death,  The.  177. 

Visions  of  Bellay,  translated  oy  Spen- 
ser, 50. 

Visions  of  Petrarch,  translated  by 
Spenser,  50. 

Visit  to  the  Hebrides,  A,  151. 

Vittoria  Corombona,  99. 

Voiace  and  Travaile  of  Sir  John  Man- 
deville,  34. 

Volpone,  90. 

Vox  Clamantis.  29. 

Voyages,  Hakluyt's,  64. 

Waeoner,  The,  169. 

WaUenstein,  translated  by  Coleridge, 

173. 
"Waller,  Edmund,  110, 121. 
Walpole,  Horace,  144, 146, 149, 183. 
Walton,  Izaak,  104. 
Warner,  William,  71. 
Warren   Hastings,    Macaulay's    Essay 

on,  209. 
Warton,  Joseph,  147-149. 
Warton,  Thomas,  68,  144, 147. 
Wat  Tyler,  166. 
Watson,  Thomas,  69. 
Waverley,  182. 

Waveriey  Novels,  The,  181-183. 
Way  of  the  World,  The,  126. 
We  are  Seven,  169. 
Webster,  John,  79,  80,  98,  99. 


Westminster  Eeview,  The,  205. 

"  When  Jauuar  Winds,"  160. 

"  When  we  two  parted,"  188. 

Whitsunday,  107. 

Why  Come  Ye  not  to  Court,  40. 

Wiat,  Thomas,  48,  49. 

Wiclif,  John,  23,  24,  28. 

Wife  of  Bath's  Prologue,  The,  26. 

Wife  of  Bath's  Tale,  The,  28,  84. 

Wilde  Jager,  Der,  translated  by  Soott, 

181. 
Wilhelm  Meister,  translated  by  Carlyle, 

210. 
William  and  the  Werewolf,  20. 
William  of  Malmsburv,  12. 
"  Willie  brewed  a  peck  o'  maut,"  161. 
Wilson,  John,  165, 176. 
Windsor  Forest,  138. 
Winter's  Tale,  The,  66,  85. 
Wishes  for  His  Unknown  Mistress,  109 


Wither,  George.  Ill, 
Woodville,  Antnony, 


120, 131. 
36. 


Wordsworth,  William,  44,  70, 108, 116, 
148,  164,  166-173,  175,  176,  178, 
179,  181,  188,  193,  195. 

Worthies  of  England,  The,  103. 

Wotton,  Henry,  104. 

Written  in  the  Euganean  Hills,  192. 

Wycheriey,  William,  121, 125- 127. 

Yarrow  Unvisited,  169. 

Ye  Mariners  of  England,  184. 

Yellowplush  Papers,  802.  - 


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